In an interview with Cadena SER, Barei spoke about her Eurovision 2016 experience with the Spanish Delegation.
Suggestions ended up being rejected
Barei was full of ideas when it came to planning her performance in Stockholm. Despite this, the Eurovision 2016 representative was faced with rejection.
“The worst moment of Eurovision was when the instructions I had written were not followed in the first rehearsal.”
Barei on her staging ideas failing to get across to the Spanish Delegation
According to Barei, she had a PDF file that indicated what her performance should be like. Moreover, she puts the blame on Federico Llano, the Head of Delegation at the time. Llano rejected Barei’s suggestions and therefore, she felt she was unable to take advantage of the opportunities Eurovision had to offer.
“This is not an RTVE thing, it is a question of who was in charge of the Spanish delegation at that time, Federico Llano. For the record, on a personal level I have nothing against him, but on a professional level he is a wall. I don’t know if he was under pressure or not, but his refusals were constant.
With the level of the rest of the participants, I couldn’t compete. He could do the best he could with the backing singers but little else. The performance was pretty much put on in 10 days and I still really enjoyed it. I ended up happy because the emotion was there.”
Barei on 2016 Spanish Head of Delegation Federico Llano
Some of Barei’s ideas included using stairs as a prop while her backing singers danced with shadow lighting. While this would be happening, Barei herself was to be illuminated with purple and red spotlights.
In addition, she compared Spain’s performances to the work of José Luis Moreno, a famous ventriloquist.
When asked if she saw herself taking the victory in Sweden, she responded:
“I knew I had no chance of winning. Hello? We are Spain. I had been denied the set design that I had requested up to three times and I know that we always fail at that. The rest of the countries have very important proposals and take advantage of the overproduction that is Eurovision on all levels.”
In contrast to the constant rejections when it came to her performance ideas, Barei looked back on the best moments of her Eurovision experience. One of her highlights was when Justin Timberlake performed at the Grand Final, as well as bonding with French representative Amir.
Barei at Eurovision
Barei represented Spain in Eurovision 2016 with her song “Say Yay!”. In the Grand Final, she managed to achieve 22nd place with 77 Points.
Do you think Barei’s result would have improved if the Spanish Delegation went with her performance ideas? Let us know in the comments!
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