Every night, we summarize the events that occurred in Rotterdam. On the second day, we saw the last nine countries of the first semi final of Eurovision 2021 on stage. And some of them came with challenging plans to The Netherlands, when it comes to their act and staging.
In What Happened Today we close off the day with an overview of the most important facts and videos. Have you been working all day? Or you did not have time to follow the rehearsals? Everything you may have missed – you can catch up every night in this article.
Big favourite from Malta goes pink in first rehearsal
Today marked the first rehearsal for Destiny from Malta. The bookmaker’s favorite went on stage in a risky pink outfit, and showed both strong vocals and catchy dance moves in her performance. The backdrop is pink with yellow and backing dancers accompany Destiny as she walks down stairs. Malta has dropped in the odds for the win with the bookmakers, but it is of course way to early to call of their potential victory for Destiny.
Many female solo artists took the stage
There are many powerful uptempo songs in this semi final, all of them performed by female solo artists. Today we saw a lot of them in action for the first time. It gave us the chance to compare Cyprus, Croatia, Israel, Azerbaijan (and Malta too, of course). At this point in the race, Efendi for Azerbaijan and Eleni for Cyprus impressed and look to have the best cards to make it to the final.
Challenging times for the stage manager
Cyprus and Norway perform back to back, but both nations have a lot of heavy props on stage for their act. It is a challenge for the organisation to get the stage ready after Cyprus, for the Norwegian act, within one minute. For ‘El Diablo’ there is a big metal box with letters on stage, which is being lit on fire. And, whilst still very hot, it needs to be removed so the big rocks can come on stage for Norway and evrybody gets the angel or demonic wings on. It’s a challenge, says tage Manager Richard van Rouwendaal, but he’s convinced they will get the job done.
