With the final of Melodifestivalen the preselection season for the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 is over. Our reporter Allie Lindo lives in Sweden and thinks the show of last weekend was a great warming-up for what we are about to witness in a few weeks from now.
“I was at a viewing party in Southern Sweden with one or two people who never watched a Eurovision final before,” Lindo tells in our podcast Scout Around. “And they can’t wait to see what the actual Eurovision Song Contest will be like. So they get certainly accomplished the job of getting people ready for the final.”
That Frans won the contest was hardly a surprise to Allie: “No, after his performance in the semi final we saw quite a rise of his popularity in Sweden. It is hard to say if he also gets this kind of support at Eurovision, since the international reaction is very mixed. Frans was already known to the Swedish audience for his very popular song ‘Who da Man’ about Zlatan Ibrahimovic, when he was still a cute seven year old little boy.”
It was a close field in Sweden this year. Nothing like the years 2012 and 2015 when Sweden went on to win the contest: “Frans barely beat out Oscar Zia’s ‘Human’. After the jury votes came in, we saw how close it was. When you look at Loreen and Mans, they won Melodifestivalen with a landslide. That Frans did not do that could be an indicator that he will not win in May.”