We have probably gradually become accustomed to lots of LED screens and pyro, but it literally shone with its absence in this year’s season with MGP.

MGP took a trip to the low-price segment, which one could fear in advance would end with a bad aftertaste, but no, here we were served proper things.

There will actually be a lot of good TV from great light shows, good direction of the 9 different performances shown on stage and artists who made them shine and create fireworks on stage.

Quite possibly the extra ballast the artists had to carry due to a not too technically advanced stage ignited them extra and made this the show it became.

There is basically only one thing that I now react to with a slightly sour mouth and that is the postcards of some of the artists, here there is a bit too much Melodi Grand Surmuling and Pity-seeking.

It’s fine that in the final they can explain a bit of the origin of the song, but for the final perhaps brand new postcards should be made where the artist was happy about the final place and the experience they had in front of them on stage.

In any case, this is only a small selection, I strongly expect that the individual artists will have some say in the team on how they are to be presented.

But, on to more positivity, the presenters Arian and Staysman were as if made for the task, just the right amount of loose and excited, but always with one foot on the pedal that steered the seriousness up in the whole thing.

We would simply like to see them again and NRK would be downright stupid if they are not already on the MGP-2024 list.

I will comment on each individual song in separate cases later this month, so we will come back to that.

The break features with a look back are always welcome in my eyes, fun to see the development this program has had, not least the kind of attitude NRK itself has had towards this competition over the years.

It was naturally pleasing that the voting was done with the help of both the people and an international jury, in that sense I have much higher hopes for Allesandra now than if she had only been sent to Liverpool with the help of the people.

In advance I had predicted a tie vote, but as the show approached I actually said to someone that maybe the tie vote is just wishful thinking, maybe it is one then sweeps the others off the field.

You could say that young Miss Mele did, and the reintroduction of foreign juries, I would say, went quite painlessly, and that is probably also due to the fact that the same song was a favorite of both jury groups.

If there had been more of a split between these and the jury’s favorite who had barely beaten the people’s favourite, there would probably have been a bit of a row and rowdiness is always nice to avoid.

All in all, NRK is on a very good track for next year’s MGP final and I would be more than happy to see the final then also take place in Trondheim, sorry Oslo, but as the MGP capital in Norway you are not doing well, I would say.

In Oslo, you can’t even sell out semi-finals with 250 people, it gets bad, so the Trønder capital is now preferred.

But, first the queen of kings will conquer the great abroad first, as you know, the first voyages have gone very well.