"There Were Only Friendly People and Love in the Air": Fans, Tourism and the Eurovision Song Contest

This chapter will give some insight into the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) as an event that attracts a particular group of tourists – fans. Fan tourism is a growing field and the travel industries are increasingly viewing fans as a key market segment. What makes the ESC unique both as an event and a fandom is that the fans are firstly fans of the competition, and not of a particular artist. With a television audience of around 200 million the ESC can be regarded as a mega event, but despite its size it has maintained a certain intimacy – which may be partly due to the friendly atmosphere among the traveling fans (many of whom are regular ESC attendees). The ESC as a media event is sometimes prone to stereotyping, and perhaps constructing simplified European identities, but the corporal event experience adds other aspects and dimensions. While watching from the sofa and following social media comments may reinforce old-fashioned dichotomies, traveling to attend the event and mixing with fans from other countries foster a greater sense of respect for other cultures.

This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in The Routledge Handbook of Popular Culture and Tourism on 27/06/2018, available online: https://www.routledge.com/9781138678354