Thank You For 2013. Photo : Wikipedia

Thank you to All our Readers and Contributors

Dear Eurovision fans, Its been a great year for Eurovision Ireland and we wouldn’t have got to where we are if it weren’t for you, so here’s a thank you note from Ireland  and a Video Glimpse of our backyard: Dublin city. As 2013 draws to a close we wanted to say “What’s Another Year?” – Well here is our story on that one.

The Crazy Year We Had…

Its been a crazy year and as you know we do all this out of sheer passion for the Eurovision Song Contest, the Super fans and all its participants.

2013 was the year we hit a record high of over 15K readers in one day – bet you can guess which month?

We would also like to say thank you to all the new readers who joined us in 2013 as we have grown from an average of 3-5K readers per month in 2012 to a whopping average of 75K readers per month in 2013. That’s what we call Progress Folks!

Getting More Social..

2013 was the year we got way more social and today we can safely say close to 9K people follow us across all our channels. As of today you can get a taste of Eurovision Ireland news and tell us what you think in the following ways:

YouTube

We got busy on YouTube this year with weekly video Roundups and Interviews  on a more regular basis and guess what? we’re addicted.

Facebook

Our bread and butter and where most of our readers hangout, We hope to bring you more funny moments, polls and love hearing your thoughts on Facebook

Twitter

Always there when you need us and we hope to be tweeting at you during the important events in our Calender so keep the conversation going at #eurovisionireland

Google+

Fancy joining us for a one to one discussion or group hangout – well you know what you have to do – join our circle in Google + . We just got started here and its been a great way to talk to our colleagues in Eurovision land

Instagram 

We had a lot of fun hooking up with fans on Instagram and messing around with pics and captions – we shared the results on our Facebook page for you guys to enjoy. Drop in your favourite Irish themed Eurovision pics with our Instagram hashtag #instaeurovisionIRL and we will be sure to follow you back.

Stay tuned as we introduce you to our Spotify playlists in 2014

Our Top 10 News Stories & Articles 

People who know nothing about Eurovsion always ask me :” what could you guys possibly be writing about 365 days a year?” Weelll…. here’s our top 10 stories of the year people read the most this 2013. That to set you thinking:

1. Eurosong 2013 : The Big Poll – VOTING OPEN NOW
2. Malta – Gianluca takes to the stage – a little early
3. Eurovision Predictions 2013 – Update on our Fan Voting Polls
4. BIG POLL – Predict who will qualify from Eurovision Semi Final 2 ?
5. Ireland 2013 : “One Direction” are supporting what Act at Eurosong 2013?
6. Jury Voting Grand Final Dress Rehearsal Rolling Blog- Just Refresh the page
7. Eurovision Voting Polls 2013 – Update on who leads and can anyone catch Cezar?
8. Norway regretting their Eurovision choice for 2013?
9. Exclusive – Ireland 2013 – Eurosong Finalists Confirmation
10. HUNGARY : ByeAlex Returns With Another Amazing Song

If there’s one thing we learnt – Eurovision Ireland readers loved gaming the event whether it was through your participation in polls, revealing and reading about predictions and placing virtual bets on who was to win. Being the official Irish Blog for Eurovision 2013 meant that we saw a lot of interest in our Eurosong news. There was definitely no end of interest in the Sneak peaks at the Eurovision Dress Rehearsals.

Where Do Our Readers Come From?

Our readers come from over 100 countries around the globe , but most of you are English speakers and represent our close ties as a nation with the UK, Australia and the USA. We also have a big *Wave for our readers in Germany , Sweden and all the Nordic Countries not forgetting our friends in warmer climes such as Malta, Greece, and Spain.

Proof that Eurovision is truly global ? We got readers from places we would never have thought were possible like Africa, the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific islands. Places like : Macao, Vanuatu, Ghana and Suriname to name a few.

Ireland	1
United Kingdom	2
United States	3
Germany	4
Netherlands	5
Spain	6
Greece	7
Malta	8
Sweden	9
Finland	10

Eurovision High and Lows in 2013?  You tell US!

We asked this question on Facebook and got some great answers

You can tell us on twitter too

With well over 1k responses to your highs and lows of 2013, it took us some time to count, recount, have an independent adjudicator verify the results and then add in the jury rankings (we now know how Jon Ola Sand feels when he asks for the votes at Eurovision) but we have your results.

2013 Top 5 Low Points

5. Boos from the audience when Armenia qualified for the Grand Final. Rightly so! Dorians well deserved their place in the Saturday night Grand Final. Boos are best kept for X-Factor and Pantomime!

4. The price of drink in Malmo. Oh my word. That must have been the Eurovision Ireland team voting in that one.

3. No sign of Abba at Eurovision 2013. Many of you had hoped that Abba would have made an appearance in Malmo. Maybe they are waiting for Copenhagen to celebrate their 1974 victory.

2. Valentina Monetta not qualifying for the Grand Final at Eurovision 2013. She had scored so well in the OGAE poll in the run up to Eurovision but on the night the audience just didn’t appreciate the IKEA light feature birth scene. We did Valentina and we hope that 2014 you will be in our Highlights list.

1. Ireland coming last in the Grand Final of Eurovision 2013. Overwhelmingly this was your Low Point of Eurovision 2013 and that was not from the Irish readers. You were shocked at how Ireland did not score in the Grand Final and you took to your keyboards in huge numbers to tell us that. Over 60% of you said that was the shock of 2013. We agree with you out there. Ryan and the team were #Amazing on the night and words fail us too as to the low scores. We are sure that there is more to come from Ryan and the guys – stay tuned is all we are saying for now!

2013 Top 5 High Points

2013 provided you with lots of high points. So who made your list?

5. Cezar – “It’s My Life”. It seems that you either loved or loathed Cezar at this year’s Eurovision. You know that we LOVED Cezar and his Dracula themed stage performance at this year’s Eurovision. From him being hoisted up in the air to his seemingly nude dancers, he was in your Top 5!

4. Zlata and Igor. They may have only been together on-screen for 5 seconds but the pantomime or fairytale of the occasion had you enthralled. We remember the press room when we saw it for the first time. There wasn’t a dry eye to be seen – from the laughter but that is why we love Eurovision and why you had Zlata and Igor at number 4.

3. Leather Clad Topless Irish Dancers! Every cloud has  silver lining as they say. Ryan and the team may have been 26th in the Grand final but you could not get enough of our 2 fine specimens of “Prime Irish Beef” at this year’s Eurovision. Never had an Irish entry been so sexy and slippery. We certainly took our time oiling up the guys backstage and you seemed to have liked our work. I wonder if Johnson and Johnson might like to sponsor us next year at Eurovision?

2. “I know a Drag Queen when I see one”. How could she say such a thing about our Eurovision Winning Legend Linda Martin? Petra Mede certainly tickled your funny bone when she made that jibe at Lina Martin. However Linda has had the last laugh. The comment went viral across the media and Linda has never been so busy since then. So we say to Petra – “Tack”.

1. Carola being knocked off stage at Eurovision 2013. With almost 40% of the vote, your highlight of Eurovision 2013 was Sweden’s Eurovision Winner Carola being on stage for less than 5 seconds. Yes you loved how that “Love Storm” eventually caught up with her as she was yanked off stage during the Interval Act at this year’s Grand Final. We believe that France’s Amina was working the wind machine that night. Revenge is best served cold and in this case 22 years cold but people were stunned that SVT would dream of asking Carola to do this and secondly that Carola would accept – and we thank her for it. We saw it in the audience and it was even funnier. People say that the Swede’s don’t have a sense of humour – well we give you your NUMBER ONE moment of Eurovision 2013. Enjoy.

So the team here at Eurovision Ireland want to thank each and everyone of you for becoming a member of our extended family and hope that 2014 is another wonderful year for you, your loved ones and of course for Eurovision.

Happy New Year from Elaine, John, Andrew, Stephen, Stephanie, Jody and Monty (coming soon in 2014), Elish and Garrett. 2014 is all about the ### so #JoinUs again in 2014 for more Eurovision News, Views and FUN!

Ready to move on to 2014 and curious as to what we will be doing next ? Well that’s a whole other article..

Thank You For Joining Us. Photo : Wikipedia

Author/Website co-founder and Editor Elish Bul-Godley

Source : Eurovision Ireland