JESC 2020 | Two venues up for consideration to host Junior Eurovision 2020

Image Source: EBU

Despite the ongoing pandemic still affecting all of our daily lives, planning for Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2020 is still going ahead. After the 2019 winner Viki Gabor announced at Eurovision: Europe Shine A Light back in May that the contest is still going ahead in Poland, the question that still needs to be answered is where is the venue going to be.

Whilst we know that it is going to be held in a TV studio in Warsaw, local reports have stated that there are two potential venues being taken into consideration to host the event: the ATM Studio and the Transcolor Studio. This has come after Krakow pulled out of hosting following a disagreement with the broadcaster TVP.

The ATM Studio, one of the newest studios in Poland, has a studio area of 1500 sq. metres and has previously hosted popular TV shows such as the global TV hit "The Voice". This venue is located 12km away from the centre of Warsaw and has a studio capacity of 1,300 depending on the stage design.

The second of the venues, the Transcolor Studio, also has an impressive back catalogue of hosting TV shows, such as the Polish versions of series franchises "Got Talent" and "Dancing with the Stars". This has a studio size similar to the other studio, standing at 1500 sq. metres and has a studio capacity of 1,400. One benefit of this studio is that its ceiling has the ability to carry up to 70 tons, and hence is able to carry a significant amount of lighting required to hold a large scale event such as this.

Regardless of which studio is chosen, choosing either would mean that this year's contest would be one of the smallest on record in terms of audience capacity, with the contest in 2016 being the last time a contest has been held on a small scale, with it held in the 1,400 seater Mediterranean Conference Centre in Valetta, Malta.

Currently 9 countries have confirmed their participation in this year's contest, with this year's contest theme being #movetheworld. Last year's contest was held in Gliwice, Poland and was won by Viki Gabor with the song "Superhero". You can watch her winning performance below: