LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s King Charles and his wife Camilla unveiled the stage for next month’s 2023 Eurovision Song Contest during a visit to the venue in the northern English city of Liverpool on Wednesday, saying he would be watching.
Charles and the Queen Consort, whose coronation will take place a few days before the competition, also met Britain’s entrant Mae Muller and took part in the recording of a segment for the children’s television entertainment show Blue Peter.
“We’ll be watching with great interest, egging you on,” the king told Muller.
Liverpool is set to host the competition, on behalf of last year’s winner Ukraine after it was unable to stage the competition because of the Russian invasion. Britain was the runner-up last year.
Following a countdown by onlookers, Charles and Camilla unveiled the competition stage by pressing a large pink button which initiated a series of colourful dancing stage lights and a pulsating beat.
Next month will see a series of celebrations across Britain, with the formal coronation ceremony for Charles at Westminster Abbey on May 6 and a concert the following day after at Windsor Castle.
In February, Britain’s government said it would make 3,000 tickets for the Eurovision Song Contest available to displaced Ukrainians and provide 10 million pounds ($12.47 million) of funding to help host the competition.
The song contest will be hosted between May 9 and 13.
($1 = 0.8022 pounds)
(Reporting by Farouq Suleiman, Editing by Kylie MacLellan)
