Bristol City Council spent £70 on ‘serious bid’ to host Eurovision contest

Bristol City Council spent £70.42 on a failed bid to bring the Eurovision song contest to the city next year.

The annual contest will be hosted in the UK in May 2023, but Bristol has not secured a place on the recently announced shortlist. Mayor Marvin Rees told BBC Radio Bristol earlier this month that he was “very disappointed for the city”.

A recent freedom of information request has now revealed that the city council spent £50 on making a video for the bid, and £20.42 on travel expenses. The video, made by an external videographer, was ultimately not used due to licensing issues.

The cost of £70.42 is much smaller than what some other cities have spent in their bids to host Eurovision. Aberdeen City Council committed to spend a staggering £30,000 of taxpayers’ money on their bid, but also ended up not making the shortlist of host cities.

A Bristol City Council spokesperson said: “Working with key city partners like YTL Arena Bristol, we tabled a serious bid from our global city at a minimal cost to council tax payers. Ukrainians were at the heart of Bristol’s bid, and we continue to support them as a proud City of Sanctuary.”

Bristol would have hosted Eurovision at the new YTL Arena under construction at the Brabazon Hangars in Filton. The council previously faced questions about its ability to host the contest there, as the arena is not due to open until 2024 — a year after the contest. A bespoke venue would have been created to host the song contest, if Bristol were chosen.

Speaking on the radio earlier in August, Mr Rees said: “We’re disappointed but we continue to be ambitious for the city, and ambitions come with knockbacks. But it’s experience, and now we’ve been through it, we’re in a better position to pursue our ambitions with Bristol in the future.”

The seven cities which did make the shortlist are Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield, with a final decision due in autumn. The UK will host the contest on behalf of this year’s winners Ukraine, due to the ongoing war there.