With rehearsals for Eurovision 2019 in Tel Aviv just around the corner, more staging details are starting to emerge. The latest is the news that Victor Crone’s ‘storm’ effect has been re-created by the production team in Tel Aviv.
The production team behind Eurovision 2019 have created an optimised version of the ‘storm’ from Victor’s Eesti Laul staging. This was revealed by Tomi Rahula, the Head of Delegation for Estonia. According to ERR, he stated that the broadcaster had originally planned to create the effect. Having seen their plans and original performance, the production team in Tel Aviv asked ERR to take the challenge on instead!
The production team produced two different staging options for the delegation: one being the video effect and the other not showing a storm. Tomi has revealed that ERR decided to use the storm effect.
Who is Victor Crone?
East Laul 2019 wasn’t the first national final that Victor Crone had taken part in. The Swedish singer took part in Melodifestivalen 2015 as part of Behrang Miri’s “Det rår vi inte for”. Passing the semi stage, the entry made it to Andra Chansen – the second chance round of the competition.
“Storm” was one of 24 entries shortlisted as part of Eesti Laul 2019. He qualified from the first semi-final, winning the televote and being the second choice of the juries. In the final, Victor won the televote by a comfortable margin, but narrowly scraping into the ‘superfinal’ round by just 1 point from the jury vote. The super-final is decided by the public alone and it was in this round where “Storm” was selected to represent Estonia at the Eurovision Song Contest 2018, with 46% of the three-way vote.
Storm was written by Stig Rästa, Vallo Kikas and Victor himself. Hoping to bring Estonia to the Grand Final for the second consecutive year, Victor will be performing Storm 14th in the first semi-final on May 14.
Estonia at the Eurovision Song Contest
Estonia first attempted to make their debut at the 1993 contest. Due to an influx of new nations, they had to take part in a special qualification competition: Kvalifikacija za Millstreet. This was a result of the break up of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Estonia were not able to secure one of the three places at the 1993 contest, so their debut waited until 1994.
Estonia has since become the most successful of the three Baltic nations, securing ten top-ten finishes in their 24 Eurovision appearances. This included a victory in 2001 courtesy of Tanel Padar, Dave Benton & 2XL and their track “Everybody”.
Unfortunately for Estonia, they initially struggled to adapt to the enlarged contest once semi-finals were introduced in 2004. After five consecutive non-qualifications, rumours emerged that the nation was to withdraw from the contest in 2009. Thankfully, ERR chose to send an entry after all and Urban Symphony secured a superb sixth place with “Rändajad”.
Since 2009, Estonia has reached the final on six out of ten occasions, four of which resulting in a top-ten finish. The most recent of which occurred last year when Elina Nechayeva placed eighth with “La Forza” with 245 points.
Are you looking forward to seeing Victor’s Storm in Tel Aviv? Let us know! Be sure to stay updated by following @ESCXTRA on Twitter, @escxtra on Instagram and liking our Facebook page for the latest updates! We’ll also be posting plenty of content on our YouTube in the run up to Tel Aviv!
