Another year, another vintage edition for the Eurosonic Festival! The event took place on 10-12 January 2013 and Euroradio was once again bang in the middle of it. The European showcase festival for emerging bands and artists is held every year in the lively - and lovely - city of Groningen in the Netherlands. 24 EBU radio stations supported 26 acts to perform (*), with all the concerts recorded and made available on Euroradio.

The festival kicked off with the European Border Breakers Awards (EBBA), a show presented by Jools Holland and produced for TV, Radio and Online.
The EBBA go to emerging European pop acts who enjoy success outside their own borders with their first release. Rappers from the Netherlands and a rock-band from Estonia were amongst the ten winners of the awards, sponsored by the European Commission. And French collective C2C were the "Winners of Winners" this year, receiving the Public Choice Award (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s2fTDZHeaY&playnext=1&list=PLzFbOjp1CBf09ExjpX4x0nbpq2edyUK2l&feature=results_video).

What makes this event unique is not only the Music, it's also the collaborative spirit and commitment of public service broadcasters: NPB/Netherlands, VRT/Belgium, ARD-WDR/Germany, SR/Sweden and BBC/United Kingdom are joining forces to record and make all the concerts available. That's what you call a team effort!

Concerts and recordings

The Hosts again set up a “Media Compound”, where studio cubicles were installed for transmissions, interviews, sessions recorded, reports filed and audio-video material collected.
The following radios did broadcasts from Groningen:
RTS/Serbia, RTÉ2FM/Ireland, RTBF Pure FM/Belgium, Radio France/Le Mouv', YLEX/Finland, ARD-WDR 1Live/Germany, 100.7/Luxembourg, RUV Rás 2/Iceland, BBC Radio 1/UK, DR P6 Beat/Denmark.

EBU Euroradio is also present in Groningen in various professional panels. One of the highlights this year was most definitely a panel entitled "Live

Video Streams and Festivals". As video live streaming of festivals is developing very quickly, a lively and open discussion took place between representatives of YouTube, NPO/Netherlands, BBC/UK, Sziget and Lowlands festivals, Universal Holland.

All in all, this 2013 could be deemed a real success.
Bring on 2014!