Breda drops out of Eurovision 2020 host race

The race to find the city that will host Eurovision 2020 has once again shortened, as Breda drops out of the race, becoming the third city to do so. The Hague and Leeuwarden dropped out in June, and as July starts, Breda leaves the race. The city has decided not to submit its bid, citing financial difficulties associated with hosting the event. This leaves Amsterdam, Arnhem, Maastricht, Rotterdam, ‘s-Hertogenbosch and Utrecht in the race to host.

Breda’s costs were too high

Breda is located in the south of the Netherlands, close to the border with Belgium. It had laid out plans for the contest to be hosted in Breepark, a stadium with a capacity of 13,000. This would have been entirely suitable to host the contest, in technical facilities and size, so there was no cost associated with creating a venue.

However, other costs associated with the contest were too high for the city to consider, once they had gone over the requirements laid out for them by the broadcaster team of NPO, NOS and AVROTROS, who are organising the event.

Dan Quaars, a member of the Breda City Council, was quoted as saying:

After some additional questions to the NPO, we finally had to conclude that, partly in view of the current financial situation of the municipality, it cannot be justified. Also because everything is under a great time pressure, the candidate cities must submit their bid books no later than 10 July.

The event as a whole costs tens of millions. I do not know exactly how much we as a municipality should guarantee, but that is not about 100,000 euros. It concerns really large amounts.

Dan Quaars, speaking to BNDeStem (translated from Dutch)

He emphasised in another interview that Breda was keen to host, but the financial aspects of it made it an unrealistic ambition:

Breda is a city with guts and metropolitan ambitions. That’s why we confidently signed up for the organization of the song festival.
From a further explanation of the rules of this special event it seems that a guarantee for this considerable amount of money must be unilaterally issued by the municipality. This is not realistic.”

Dan Quaars, speaking to Omroep Brabant (translated from Dutch)

North Brabant’s hopes down to one

Quaars had said previously that the entire region of North Brabant should come up with a single bid to submit to the broadcasters with the aim of getting Eurovision hosted within the province. With Breda’s exit from the hosting race, this leaves ‘s-Hertogenbosch as the only city from that province still in the running. The Mayor of Den Bosch, Jack Mikkers, was in favour of a collective bid, and now only one bid from North Brabant is left.

Full list of venues

Of the cities left, here are the venues still being considered.

What do you think about Breda dropping out? Are you surprised, or disappointed, that Eurovision won’t be at the Breepark? Let us know, in our comments section or on social media!