Poland’s Gliwice to host Junior Eurovision 2019?

Just weeks ago, Roksana Węgiel won the Junior Eurovision 2018 for Poland with her song, Anyone I Want to Be. Now, we have our first potential host city, Poland’s Gliwice with Arena Gliwice!

The MP for the city (Jarosław Gonciarz) sent a letter to the President of TVP, Poland’s national broadcaster, stating that:

The city of Gliwice has a modern, recently built show and sports hall with a total capacity of 17,000 seats. Arena Gliwice is one of the most modern facilities in our country. Its location guarantees free access from anywhere in the country. On behalf of myself and residents, I am asking you to take Arena Gliwice into consideration as a place for organizing the next year’s Junior Eurovision.

Jarosław Gonciarz, Member of Parliament for Gliwice

Below is a promotional drone video of the Arena Gliwice which Gonciarz puts forward as the host venue.

“I’ve never heard of Gliwice…”

Well then you’re in luck – we can summarise the city for you!

Gliwice is in the south of Poland, near to the border with Czechia. Its population in 2013 was 186,347, making it a rather sizeable city. The nearest major city in Poland is Katowice, which is the regional capital of the Silesian Voivodeship (voivodeships are similar to “provinces” in English), which contains over 2.7 million people.

In Poland, Gliwice is known as one of the major college towns and a major applied science hub, with over 20,000 people studying there and the Silesian University of Technology. The city is also an important industrial centre for Poland, with economic activities such as chemical production, food processing and automobile manufacturing taking place in the city.

Would you like to see Gliwice host the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2019? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below and on social media @ESCXTRA