As the city gears up for the biggest Eurovision takeover a host city has ever staged, more details have been unveiled about a very special event which will kick-start Liverpool’s celebrations.
The Blue and Yellow Submarine Parade will take over the city centre on Friday 5 May, and will see an underwater sea disco come to life on the city streets as a new magical world called Aquatopia is created.
Featuring a glitterball puffer fish, a drumming octopus, a crew of skating jellyfish, voguing Sea Queens plus many more creatures of the sea and of course a blue and yellow submarine. The parade will start at 6pm at Williamson Square, and will travel in a loop along Whitechapel, up Church Street and along Basnett Street. It will head back to Williamson Square at approximately 7.45pm, for an epic finale moment.
Members of the public are encouraged to follow the parade and are urged to embrace the theme and dress in underwater fancy dress as well!
Inspired by the United By Music theme and symbolising partnership and community, hundreds of performers, musicians and community groups will be involved including LGBTQ+ groups, dance companies, asylum seekers as well as local organisations such as Katumba and Movema.
As with all the host city events, there is significant Ukrainian involvement with the submarine doubling as a stage for a newly formed band made up of star vocalist Sofia Pavlichenko (front woman of Freedom Jazz), Bozhena Hamar (Ukrainian ethnic flute virtuoso) and Liverpool’s Dogshow brothers Sam and Laurie Crombie performing euro classics in an ethno-Ukraine techno mashup.
The event has been produced by the Invisible Wind Factory and Kazimier Productions and is part of EuroFestival and is one of 24 new commissions taking over the city as part of Eurovision.
To find out more about Liverpool’s entire host city offering, head to the Visit Liverpool website.
Laura Cotter, Creative Producer at the Invisible Wind Factory, said:
“We are so thrilled to be putting all of our creative skills and experience to good use to provide something truly unique for the Eurovision celebrations. Community is at the heart of everything we do and this project is another example of that. The support and participation the project has already received has been immense, we are so excited for May 5th and we hope the whole city gets dressed in their wildest sea inspired get-up and gets involved!”
Sam Crombie, Music Director at the Invisible Wind Factory, said:
“Our submarine is heading to Aquatopia, a world where everyone can submerge themselves in their fishy fantasies, crabby creativity and come together for a parade celebrating this unifying moment in Liverpool’s history.
Pavlo the Puffer Fish, Craig the Ray and Terry the Tiktoktopus say ‘see you at the oceanic party of a lifetime!”
Director of Culture Liverpool, Claire McColgan CBE, said:
“This event is going to be brilliantly bonkers and is the perfect way for Liverpool to embrace all things Eurovision. We were never going to programme anything that eased people gently into the Eurovision madness – Liverpool is grabbing this opportunity with both hands and thanks to our incredibly special relationship with Ukraine, we’re programming activities no host city has ever done before. And I think we can safely say that voguing sea creatures and a drumming octopus is a first.
“I want to encourage as many people as possible to head to the city centre on the 5th and join in with these celebrations – this is a real moment in time for us all and so let’s all embrace this creative, fun, unifying event.”
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