5+ things Canada omits ignoring Eurovision Song Contest

If you say “Eurovision” in any country, you will get a reaction. While travelling around Europe, I held an experiment where I asked random people walking down the street what they thought about Eurovision. It was interesting that the reactions were quite similar. I could only divide them into two groups: an “oooh” group (85% I would say) and a “meh” one (the remaining 15%). The ooohs also included words like “tradition”, “family”, “another Christmas”, “united Europe”, “diversity”, “pride 2.0”, “amazing show” while the mehs mostly mentioned “politics”, “clowns”, “do we still participate?” When I asked people in Canada about Eurovision, 100% gave a typical Canadian answer: “eh?”

Did you know that Eurovision is actually broadcast in Canada? Did you know Canadians participate in Eurovision from year to year? Canada is one of the biggest immigration centers in the world, how many of those immigrants are Europeans who can not live without their dose of Eurovision? Canada should have learned a long time ago, why didn’t it take hold here?

I did some market research, had exciting conversations with Canadian arts workers, musicians, art administration students and even held a Eurovision gathering for interested Canadians. I read a bunch of articles and googled a lot. And the answer was simple: the United States. America is a big Black Hole sucking in Canadian stars, art and exclusivity, and giving back US produced talent shows, music labels and gig venues. Why on Earth should we care about something happening so far away in Europe if we have our big bro right under us! We can go there, the money is there. We do go there, because the opportunities are there. But if we go back to Europe and ask the pop culture fans about Drake or Justin Bieber or Shawn Mendez, what would they say? - “oooh (or meh) of course we know them, they’re American!”. If you ask them about Celine Dion - “Sure, she won Eurovision. Swiss girl!” What about Canada? What is Canada’s role in the world music business? Just to distribute talent to other countries or there is a way to celebrate local talent and diversity right here, right now in Canada?! Eurovision is not a Canadian contest, but it is a place where every country is welcome to present itself to the world. A contest where differences are celebrated and exclusivity is highlighted. While the US is solving their own problems, Canada is welcome to deal with Canadian ones. It’s obvious that it’s impossible to start a new contest or a festival uniting Canadian art once and forever, even though in my opinion that’s what should be on Canada’s to do list, but it’s not impossible to integrate it into something that already exists, something like Eurovision.

Here are 5 things Canada misses out on by not being a part of the European contest.

- An artist representation platform

Every country has Xfactor or the Voice or at least <…> Got Talent. The main idea of all these projects is to connect an experienced class of music industry professionals with the upcoming generation of talented musicians, to teach them and to present them to the whole country. This involves audience, concerts, producers, labels, money, career and image building. When I said every country has such a project I meant almost every country because I excluded Canada. We have the Voice, but the Voice is produced in Quebec. In French. The money is definitely not there, so the show looks like an average high school prom production. The Voice contestants of Quebec receive a low quality video after the project, no connections and no exposure. So where can Canadians go? They can be on X factor in the US, where all the money is, where the ratings are topping themselves again and again, even in other countries where US X factor is officially blocked due to international policies?

It is sad, but the majority of art workers in Toronto feel the need to leave the country because they feel their effort (read art) is underestimated and not well-paid. We enter the endless marketing circle where there is no interest because of no product and no product because of no interest. Who will go on the poor Canadian Voice and who will watch an average show when Rogers beckons you to turn the US best in the west television on?

Canada needs an artistic representation platform just as a fish needs water. And if we are afraid of investing money in the arts because our marketing specialists threaten us with reports saying “Canadians don’t care”, then let’s do something cheaper and safer. Let’s enter the big existing contest which guarantees a high level production, international artistic exposure and will also help fix the marketing reports and let’s see how Canadians will cheer their team up. Isn’t it worth trying?

- Representation of Indigenous People

One of the most sensitive and delicate Canadian topics in the agenda is Indigenous people. It’s a very important issue worth learning about, so for those who are not familiar with what I am talking about, I highly recommend that you google and look into the topic as I don’t have the capacity to dig into it within the current article.

Indigenous people are considered to be a priority group in many aspects in Canada, including the arts. Every year thousands of grant dollars are spent on creating and promoting Indigenous art. Even the government platform includes actions towards providing Indigenous art with national and international exposure. Eurovision is known for their respect of indigenous and folk sounds, vocals and instruments that are integrated into pop culture (Keiino - a semi-band, voting winners of Eurovision 2019 are the most recent, but absolutely not the only example). Canada, this contest is made just for you, for your political, financial and artistic needs, go for it already!

- National Image Building

We can go back to the oohs and mehs from my introduction and ask them about Canada. What do they know about the country? This probably was the funniest part of my research. “Oh, Canada is huge, the second biggest in the world,” - one guy said - “and your president is so sexy”. Well god bless the Canadian president. I don’t know whether he meant Elizabeth II or Justin Trudeu, but I must confess it was one of the most intelligent answers because at least he was correct about the size of the country. People mostly mentioned cold, bears, Aurora Borealis and cold again. One guy said to me, “Canada is a country without news about it” and that answer really stuck in my mind. That was probably the most accurate answer that described the whole picture. I don’t know whether it’s good or not to be the US, a country that all world news is about, but I definitely think that it is better to be a country with image. A country people have something to say about. A country people know and respect. The contest we are talking about in the article is able to build and manage a country’s image. It has over 100 marketing tools at any stage of the project to do just that. And the results are impressive. When Ukraine held Eurovision in 2017, with the help of the contest, it managed to decrease Ukrainian war news in the international agenda by 34% (according to my professional marketing research) and raised touristic streams (which means a very nice income too) by over 100% within the Eurovision Marketing activities, and I will admit as a marketing specialist, that they failed at many stages and could have done even better. Canada, I know how to learn from their mistakes, let’s just do it!

- Coming into the Light from the US Shadow

This issue was discussed already, but I made a separate section for it because apart from our sexy Canadian president, I heard a lot of jokes like “the 51st state” or “very north of the US” and I must say, in terms of many social and economic issues, being a resident of Canada I couldn’t laugh with them. Hearing about Canada sharing local art and talents with the States, I must admit that Canada is often afraid of taking the first step to support art and talent here. This country will not invest in young Shawn Mendez and avoids his requests. It will wait until he moves to the US, signs a major label contract and becomes a world celebrity and after that will say “Oh my, look at our gorgeous guy! Why are Americans always stealing our artists?” and will then place his giant picture in the most expensive advertising space in Toronto at Dundas Square.

Canada, here is your chance. It’s now official that Eurovision is coming to America in 2021. The project details are being negotiated at this very moment. Do not miss your chance this time. We shouldn’t wait until Shawn goes to the US to represent Wisconsin! Call the board (I have the number, hmu), interfere, insist on participation, act while it’s still possible, fulfil all those missing points we discussed in the article. Only our actions can make the world go round.

- A Great Show

And to finish it off, come on, it is just a very good show for very little money. Netflix bought it, OMNI TV broadcast it last year and had very good ratings even despite the time difference. Since Canadian television has some issues with the scale of self-produced events, it is better to collaborate on something ongoing and to add Canadian flavor to it rather than to carry on with the Voice of Quebec as pretty much the only opportunity for a Canadian success story.

Canada is a country. And counties are just like human beings. They have good and bad sides, their own issues, obstacles, skeletons in the closet. And they have passions, desires, opportunities, sources and the power to reach all their goals. My wish? I just want Canadian arts to blossom. I want Canadians to love their own art, to listen to their own music. I want people in Europe to know that Canada’s tradition stems from a monarchy even though we have a sexy prime minister and an even sexier queen. The beautiful power of art is that maybe we do not save lives, but we can definitely change them. Let’s change ours, and let’s start with Canadian art!