Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #54374 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-06-19
• Rating: Exempt
• Number of discs: 2
• Formats: Colour, Anamorphic, PAL, Dolby
• Original language: English, French
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 380 minutes

Customer Reviews

Europop at it's best
If you have never seen the Eurovision song contest, or maybe just heard of it, you are in for a treat with this DVD. This event is not X factor or any of the amateur shows around at present.

The event is now over 50 years old and is watched on the nearest Thursday and Saturday to the 10th and 12th May every year by over 350 million viewers in Europe alone.

40 countries from Andorra to the UK participate with a 3 minute song which must not be sung by an artist with a current international standing.

All participating countries televote from 1 to 12 points (except 9 and 11) and the winning country has the honour of hosting the following years event which itself costs over 15 million EUR to host.

However, the event puts countries on the tourist map which was the experience of Latvia when they won a few years ago. They spent every penny of their tourism budget in 1 week and now they are established as a holiday hotspot! All thanks to Eurovision.

As for this DVD, it is a good example of the event and this was arguably one of the best events so far.

Held in Athens Greece the stadium seated 30,000 people and transformed this olympic city into a week of pure european music. I was there and can hardly describe the atmosphere as the event began as always with the traditional European anthem for peace.

This year has something for everyone - slow dramatic ballads, rock from Finland, traditional Croation dance, fast pop from Sweden and punchy lyrics from the Ukraine!

Do beware though - if you buy this you may get hooked on what is the worlds longest running and most popular annual music event, which is now evolving into a whole industry of it's own with an internet radio station, countless websites, fan clubs and over 5000 recordings in 40 languages over 50 years.

Here on this DVD are the 2006 main selection.

Enjoy!

Superb centre of european excellence
What a brilliant year - we got everything from Iceland's Priscilla entry to the frank Finland's band Lordi.
There was some rubbish, there always is, but this keeps getting better and better. The pinnacle of European television which never lets down and is the best way to pass any amount of time, especially with this DVD so you can watch in whole or go to your favouite song easily.
It makes us proud to live in Europe.

One of the better of the recent contests - when will it be on Blu-ray?
One of the better of the recent contests - though there are some not very good acts too. This 2006 contest was the first to be shot in HD (so hopefully one day they will release this contest on Blu-ray), but the contest didn't start being broadcast in HD until 2007.

This 2006 contest DVD comes on 2 discs, the first for the Semi-Final, and the second disc for the Final, and is presented in anamorphic wide-screen.