Following Mans Zelmerlow’s win at the 2015 contest in Vienna with his pop song Heroes, Stockholm has been chosen as the Host City for the Eurovision Song Contest in May 2016.
The contest will be staged for the first time utilising four venues, in the Stockholm Globe District, the Tele 2 Arena, Ericsson Globe, Hovet and Annexet.
Karin Wanngård, Mayor of Stockholm, said: “It is an honour to be the host city of the Eurovision Song Contest. Stockholm is music. Our city is boiling with activities that revolves around music. Creativity is close to our heart and we want this to be visible during the event. Hosting Eurovision is an opportunity for us to strengthen and stimulate the interest that music creates. We are looking forward to greeting the world to Stockholm in May.”
The main events will take place at all four venues in the Stockholm Globe District. The finale will take place in Ericsson Globe on May 10-14, 2016.
“The solution with multiple arenas enables us to produce the Eurovision Song Contest in the Globe, have the press center at the Hovet and the delegations area at the Annex. The Jewel in the Crown is to take Eurovision Song Contest to the next level by incorporating Tele2 Arena during the evening of the finale”, says Martin Österdahl, executive producer of the Eurovision Song Contest in 2016
Stockholm is the birthplace of the Swedish music phenomenon, ABBA, and one of the worlds leading music exporters. Three of the competing songs during the 2015 contest were written in Stockholm during Song Writing Camp in January.
Christina Guggenberger, who heads up marketing and outreach to LGBTI visitors, for the city of Stockholm, said: “To hear of this just before we go into this year’s Stockholm Pride and Eurogames is fantastic news.
“The ‘Stockholm Gay and Lesbian Network’ of the Stockholm Visitor’s Board, alongside ‘Stockholm Gay Life’, an organisation for the gay business and social community in Stockholm are thrilled to be able to host this global event that has great appeal to so many LGBTI people, offering an opportunity to showcase our fabulous city, that we believe is among the, if not THE, most open-minded, LGBTI-welcoming city in the world.”
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