King Charles and Queen Camilla Unveil the 2023 Eurovision Stage in Liverpool

In a little over a week, King Charles III will host the coronation, which will bring together royals and diplomats from around the world. But a week after that, another major global event will be coming to the UK, when Liverpool hosts the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest. To celebrate the first time the contest will be held in Britain since 1998, Charles and Queen Camilla traveled to the M&S Bank Arena to unveil the competition stage, where they met with the cohosts Julia Sanina and Ted Lasso’s Hannah Waddingham and the BBC’s commentators Rylan Clark and Scott Mills.

After a crowd counted down from ten, the couple pressed a button which made the stage’s lighted floors and walls come to life. While the crowd was counting, Charles looked a little distracted and Camilla gave him a nudge to remind him to put his hand on the button.

The couple also met Mae Muller, the performer behind this year’s UK entry to the contest “I Wrote a Song.” Camila said “No pressure” to the singer, and Charles said he would support her while he watches the show on May 13. “We’ll be watching with great interest, egging you on,” he said.

According to Clark, Camilla made a comment that hinted at her knowledge of British soap operas during the event when she mentioned his recent appearance on a Eurovision-themed episode of Radio 4 soap. “They were very lovely, so chatty,” he later told BBC Radio 2. “And Queen Consort Camilla was like, ‘I hear you’ve been in The Archers.’”

Traditionally the event is hosted by the winner of the previous year’s contest. Though the UK’s 2022 entry, “Space Man” by Sam Ryder, finished second to Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra and their song “Stefania,” the war-torn country asked the British to step in last October due to the ongoing conflict with Russia. (Russia had competed in Eurovision since 1994, but last year they were barred from entry because of their February 2022 attack on Ukraine.)

Though Charles’s taste in music tends towards classical, in 2018 he did mention one past Eurovision winner. During Music & Memories With HRH, a 2021 show he created with the Hospital Broadcasting Association, he made a list of 13 favorite songs, and it included “The Voice” by Eimear Quinn, the 1996 winner from Ireland. 

Sadly, Charles didn’t learn about the song until decades after its original win. “On my annual visits to Ireland, north and south, I always look forward to what I know will be a feast of musical talent,” he said on the show. “In 2018 I had the enormous pleasure of hearing the singer Eimear Quinn performing at the St Patrick’s Day dinner I attended in London. “The Voice” is the song, by Brendan Graham, and [it’s] very Celtic in its feel.”

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