Nikkie de Jager has been a fan of the Eurovision Song Contest from an early age and often listens to the songs of participating countries long in advance. But now that she is on the presentation team herself, she takes a different approach: she wanted to be a neutral party in the interviews with artists and therefore only listened to the music a few minutes before a conversation.
“I thought it was very important to go as blank as possible, because I really didn’t want me to be more fun in one interview than in the other, because I liked the music. So two minutes before we went into an interview, I listened to have it very fresh in my head, “said De Jager in conversation with NU.nl.
In mid-March, it was announced that the Eurovision Song Contest in Rotterdam cannot be held this year due to the corona virus. De Jager was going to create online content for the event and although she saw the cancellation coming, she was still disappointed.
“I laughed a little bit about it, because of course: the year that I manage to finally be able to cooperate, it will not go through. You will always see it. I am very happy that I could still do the Eurovisioncalls and we sat Europe Shine a Light to have.”
On the YouTube channel of Eurovision, videos are posted daily of De Jager, who himself has YouTube channel NikkieTutorials, who talks to the singers who would be on stage in Ahoy this year.
Saturday will be F: Europe Shine a Light broadcast that pays tribute to the music event during what would have been the 65th edition. Various artists sing Eurovision hits, the participants of this year will get a stage to share their song with the audience and De Jager gives online updates.
The conversations De Jager had with the artists were very disarming. “I would have had a tiny house in Ahoy where the artists came by for a conversation. Now they are in their own house and the atmosphere may be more intimate right away.”
“This way you have very nice conversations at once that you might not have had in a setting in Ahoy. There are people who are not sure whether they can return next year and are really sad about it, it is nice how they feel dare to expose it like that. “
Until the end of the show on Saturday, De Jager remains a neutral party, so she does not want to express expectations for who would have won the Song Festival this year. “In any case, the songs are all special to me, because I now associate them with the conversations I had. That gives you a completely different feeling.”
Europe Shine a Light can be seen at NPO1 on Saturday 16 May at 9 p.m.
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