On Friday, 30 August, Sietse Bakker made the phone call Rotterdam have been waiting for. Not much later after the announcement, AVROTROS organized a press conference on the highest floor of Inntel Hotels Rotterdam Center. ESCXTRA was present and had a small conversation with Jon Ola Sand.
10 years as the Executive Supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest
On November 26 in 2010, EBU appointed Jon Ola Sand to succeed Svante Stockselius. He is a television producer for the Norwegian television channel NRK, which was responsible for holding the festival in 2010, when Sand was the chief of production for the event. The 2020-Contest will therefore be the edition with Jon Ola Sand as the Executive Supervisor.
The interview
Can you already tell us something about a potential slogan and logo for Eurovision 2020?
Not yet, but we have been working on this whole process since the day of Duncan’s victory in Tel Aviv. However, nothing has been materialized so there is no official logo nor slogan yet. These decisions are connected to the chronological way we organize the whole contest. So I think we can really start thinking about the more creative part once we have a city and venue. Now that we have both, it’s easier to get inspired for the creation of a logo and slogan that can describe the 2020-contest.
Next year is the 65th anniversary of the contest. Are there plans to make a more special show to celebrate it?
We haven’t discussed this yet. I’m sure the creative team is thinking about this now, but again, it’s a bit too early to say. We have to do things in the right order. Up until now we have been mainly focussing on the fundamental things. That means getting a team together, getting the financial structure up, the host city and so on. So now that we finally finished that, we can start with the creative work.
A few days before the final announcement, something unexpected happened. How did you react when you heard about the host city-leak?
It was very unfortunate that this came out. We had to prepare for two alternatives. There were two videos of Duncan and two articles that have been written and ready. Unfortunately one of the prepared pages came out too early and created some expectations and buzz around it. However, I think we made a really good launch today despite of what happened a few days earlier.
Thank you so much for your time!
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