Within two weeks, ORF and the EBU will announce the host city for the Eurovision Song Contest 2015. Vienna, Innsbruck and Graz are still in the running, but according to local Austrian press, the capital Vienna is the top favorite.
Earlier this week, broadcaster ORF told that all three venues have fitted the availability rules by the EBU. Eurovision 2015 will therefore definitely take place on May 19th, 21st and 23rd next year. The Vienna Stadthalle has already been booked in the weeks before the contest, but not all concerts are set to take place in the biggest hall, and presumably some other events will be rescheduled or moved to another venue. Therefore, Stadthalle seems to have overcome its prior concern of availability.
Another big concern for the Vienna bid were the expenses. However, Austrian paper Die Presse writes that the costs to host Eurovision Vienna would be approximately 23 million. This would be well within the budget of 25 million that has been set before. Given the fact that the smaller venue in Innsbruck would require extra tents to accommodate all press and that Graz has more logistic difficulties than Vienna, Die Presse concludes that Vienna is the big favorite to host ESC 2015.
Also, the Austrian Press Agency claims that insiders of ORF have also expressed their preference for Vienna as host city. According to the APA, the European Broadcasting Union also has a strong feeling towards Vienna.
ESC Daily will keep you informed about the host city selection process in the next couple of weeks.