The Swedish capital, Stockholm, wants to suggest the Friends Arena in their bid to host the Eurovision Song Contest 2024.
Friends Arena
When Loreen came back home to celebrate her victory in Sweden’s capital, Stockholm, The Financial City Commissioner of the coty of Stockholm, Karin Wanngård, mentioned that the city is aiming for the next contest to be in the Friends Arena. Rumour has it that there are already meetings being held to see whether the capital city of Sweden can bid to organize the next contest.
The Friends Arena has place for 60,000 spectators, but in case this arena gets to host the contest the audience numbers will be reduced to create a more intimate setting. Every year, since the opening of the Friends Arena, this venue has been used to host the popular Swedish national final, Melodifestivalen; during this event the capacity of the Friends Arena is halved to 30,000 spectators, which means that this arena is one of the biggest arenas to host the contest.
Stockholm as 2024 host city
Needless to say that capital cities are always hot favourites to organize the Eurovision Song Contest in, but another hurdle needs to be overcome; three of Stockholm’s soccer teams have stated they do not want to be moved out of their home grounds for the contest to be organized. The Globen Arena, which hosted the contests of 2000 and 2016, will be renovated in 2024, so that leaves the Tele2 Arena and Friends Arena, but since the soccer teams of Stockholm do not want to practice or play somewhere else it remains yet to be seen whether the city of Stockholm will have the honour to host Eurovision 2024.
EUROVISION 2023
This year’s contest is won by Sweden’s Loreen with the song “Tattoo”. Loreen’s win marks the first time a female singer has won the Eurovision Song Contest twice, since Loreen also won the 2012 song contest with the song “Euphoria”, which is one of the most successful songs in Eurovision history. Next to this, Loreen is the second singer to win the contest twice; Irish Johnny Logan came before her.