Andy Brook
As we near the end of the competition I’d like to take the opportunity to thank a few people.
For the last three months most of my spare time has been taken up with organising the contest, and it has been a pleasure throughout.
Winning last year was a complete surprise. We had really struggled to record the song the way we wanted it to sound, and in the end the vocals and harmony were all taken from the original demo, recorded in a couple of hours. I didn’t have high hopes. The voting show was absolutely nail-biting, and when the final result came in and we had won, my legs actually gave way beneath me. At the same time I felt terribly disappointed for Christa, who had been in the lead all the way through. So I was very pleased when she decided to enter again this year, and with a beautiful song in Estonian, which is my personal favourite of the year.
From the start I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to achieve with my time at the helm of the competition: to raise the profile of the contest, and to give the best showcase possible for current and past entries. Stefan Engel set a very high standard in 2008, and on winning, he told me that the real prize was the opportunity to host the contest. Just like Eurovision, then…
I decided to incorporate as many elements from Eurovision as I could, but to re-interpret them for the internet. So we have a press centre, a green room for the artists, interval guests and, of course, the postcards.
I am eternally grateful to Kasia Nowak for providing the pictures, as well as for making the 2012 calendar possible. I asked for 30 photos, thinking this would be more than enough. In the end, of course, we needed more, and by sheer luck, the UK was blessed with an Indian Summer, and Kasia went out and took some new photos. The postcards for the final songs are some of the most stunning photography I have seen. Recently it was reported that the Stag in Bushey park had started charging towards anyone taking photos of him. Thankfully, that didn’t include Kasia.
Kasia also went out into London especially to take some photographs for me to choose one that would be framed as the trophy for this year. At the moment it is hanging on my wall… it will be with mixed emotions that I package it up and send it on to the next winner.
The little waving flags and “from Albania” etc. are a homage to my favourite Eurovision – 1991 from Rome.
Last year’s show included voting for songs which were disqualified when the contestants didn’t send in any votes, and I didn’t want this to happen again. It would have been awful to have a winner shown that was disqualified, and that is why everyone taking part ranked all of the songs. This also proved a blessing when 38 songs were entered – too many to fit on a scoreboard – and it enabled us to extract a top 24 for a voting show and then use the original rankings to work out the top 10 choices for each of the contestants for the final. (So if you voted top marks to a song that didn’t qualify, your next favourite will take the douze points in the final instead, for instance).
In the end only one team didn’t send in their votes, and I hope that isn’t due to anything more serious than baulking at the task of judging 38 songs. Anyway, we wish them well. Voting was a mamouth task (which Holger completed from underneath a parasol on a beach in Spain!) but the standard of songs was well up to scratch, and I hope everyone enjoyed listening to the entries this year.
In my opening video I said that we were still awaiting entries from Iceland, Ireland, Belgium, Russia, Hungary and Azerbaijan. Well, we are still waiting…. but it was great to welcome Ainhoa from Albania and Lavi from Romania.
We welcomed back previous winners in the shape of Tony Søgaard Olsen, Stefan Engel and of course the home entry. We tried very hard to contact Morten Boldt Hansen, but he proved rather elusive. Right up until the deadline, that is, when he submitted an entry, making it the biggest contest to date (by one song) and completing the line-up in the best possible way.
JP from Radio International has been a huge supporter of the competition over the years, and I was very keen to have him on board again this year. I remember jumping up and down the first time I heard a song of mine on the radio, during his show, in 2008. I imagine a few others felt the same way over the last few weeks.
Up until this year I had never published a website, nor had any real idea of how to go about it. An evening spent with Adrian Murphy set me on the journey, as he talked me through, step by step, how to go about the task. I was told that last year’s contest website had 27,000 hits. My aim was to double that. In fact, to date we have had over half a million hits on the website. My internet provider threatened to cut the connection three times during the last few weeks!
More importantly, our songs have been listened to over 8,000 times. That’s quite an audience!
It has been quite a job to collate all of the votes, and then to do the whole job again for the top 24 finalists, and I am grateful to Tristan White for a very long evening he spent pouring over the figures.
I hope you have enjoyed reading the articles and interviews over the past few days. Thanks go to all of the guests and the writers for their time and efforts.
The voting shows, which I know you are going to love, would not have been possible without Scorewiz, the creation of Ben Tumminaro. It’s a great piece of software.
I would like to thank two people in particular.
Liam Jarnecki, the presenter of the four shows, has been a star in every sense of the word. I asked him to present the shows almost a year ago, when it was easy enough to say yes. But he has brought absolute dedication and professionalism to the task. His only worry was whether his hair would be the same length in the two reveals (it was…) and he only had one rider: proper tea, not sissy Earl Grey, and in a mug full to the top. Not half a cup.
My partner, Donald, is used to living with Eurovision for three months of the year, but this year had a double dose, as I spent night after night clicking away on the computer. He has shown infinite patience, and for that I am very grateful. The Clapham jury was made up of everyone who helped make the show, and Donald joined in the voting. Well, he knew all the songs like the back of his hand by then! He certainly got into the swing of things, and I think we have a new fan, on the quiet.
The photo for the ‘reveal’ of ‘Let me see the impossible’ was taken by Donald when we took a moonlight paddle through St Mark’s square in Venice, last year.
Of course, without the contestants, there would have been no competition, so many, many thanks to all 34 teams. To those who didn’t qualify, I do hope that you will go away having made friends and musical contacts, and come back very soon. My first year in the competition was in 2007, when I entered two songs. They came almost last, and almost last. So never give up on the dream!
I hope everything goes smoothly over the next couple of days, and that you all enjoy the excitement of the final reveal and then the voting shows. In the meantime, here is a small taster to whet your appetite:
CP: It gives me great pleasure to introduce to the visitors to the Home Composed Song Contest website the one and only Miss Nicki French! Hi Nicki, how are you doing? Is this your first contact with the Home Composed Song Contest?
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