The first day of official schedule brought to the Romanian delegation lots of troubles. The Romanian team entered the stage with a 10 minutes delay despite the fact that the timetable had been observed until the Great Britain’s rehearsal (the team before Todomondo).
The problems didn’t stop here. Todomondo’s first rehearsal was disappointing from the sound, image and graphics point of view, TVR’s professionals claiming that none of the indications sent to the organizers was respected. Todomondo had a first contact with the stage and the choreography was adapted to the new set up, things getting better from this perspective. On the other hand, as Dan Manoliu, Head of Romanian delegation, stated there were a lot of image, shooting, sound and graphics issues to deal with.
The graphics used on the stage had nothing to do with the demands of the Romanian team, according to the rider sent three weeks before to the organizers, the image cuts and shooting didn’t follow the script proposed by our team.
”The first rehearsal was really disappointing. It was under our expectations to see that the graphics were totally different compared to the idea of the song and the concept of the script we have transmitted to the organizers. The sound was bad, the boys complained they couldn’t hear each other, although they constantly pointed that out to the sound specialist who assisted them. In the viewing room, it became clear that all the cut-off and the entire shooting had not been prepared and it was a first contact with the script and the song”, said Dan Manoliu. He talked a lot to the artistic director of the event and they agreed that, this morning, the Romanian team would send by email, from Bucharest, the graphic elements from Todomondo’s video clip to be used in the stage projections. Dan Manoliu expressed his hope that the sound matters would be solved during the second rehearsal, on Tuesday, and all the other issues (graphics, shooting, image cuts) would be checked, on Friday, at the first dress rehearsal. “If the stage, the lights, the graphics and the shooting won’t be proper, despite our willing to help the organizers team, we’ll take into consideration our withdrawal”, Dan Manoliu said.
After the rehearsal, because it was too late and the team of Great Britain decided to cancel their press conference, as all the journalists were at the official opening party, Romania’s and Armenia’s teams had to cancel their own press conferences as well. The organizers suggested to the Romanians to extend the conference, on Tuesday, by 10 minutes.
According to the EBU Regulation in Eurovision Song Contest, each participant country has to follow the official program of the event, including rehearsals, viewing sessions, make-up discussions, press conferences and head of delegations reunions & meetings.
Today, Dan Manoliu intends to present a complaint to the EBU representative, Mr. Svante Stockselius, and to acknowledge him with all the problems encountered yesterday.
”We are not happy to make such complaints, but it’s our duty to offer to our public and to our representatives an excellent show and the best conditions to perform. Romania and TVR have an image to protect, a positive awareness earned during the last years of participation to ESC and as a host of Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2006″, Dan Manoliu alleged.
After all, the night ended happily for Todomondo. At the official opening party, in Finlandia Hall, they sang Liubi, liubi, I love you and other Romanian songs, gathering around lots of guests. They took pictures with fans, they got interviewed by journalists and met other competitors from the countries they had visited during the promotion tour.
source:TVR
