UEFA announced that the dates for the Champions League schedule last December. Because 2010 is also a World Cup year, the Champions League final will not be moved to a later date. It is therefore most likely that the Eurovision Song Contest will be moved by one week to either Saturday 15 May 2008 or Saturday 29 May. An EBU spokesman told esctoday.com, "The EBU set the preliminary dates for the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest before it became known that the Champions League would take place on the 22 May. Obviously, we are looking into this and will take it into consideration when taking a final decision on the dates for the 55th running of the contest together with NRK."
Hippy Trail - Oscar-winning director Ang Lee is a contender for this year's Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or with the comedy Taking Woodstock - a film which looks at the infamous 1969 music festival - featuring Janis Joplin and The Grateful Dead among many other 60s icons - and how it became a defining cultural flashpoint for a generation of Americans.
Directed by Lee, it is based on the memoirs of Elliot Tiber, who inadvertently brought the festival to a small town in upstate New York while trying to find new custom for his parents' run-down motel. "I was yearning to do a comedy," Lee told reporters in Cannes. "After 13 years I felt I had earned the right to be happy, relaxed and at peace with myself."
Taking Woodstock is the beautiful night before, and the last moments of innocence. It marked the moment a generation departed from the old establishment in search of a fairer way to live. You have to give those half a million kids credit. They had three days of peace and music. Nothing violent happened. I don't know if we can pull that off today."
Sunshine State - Infocomm 2009, being held 14-19 June in Orlando, Florida, is being billed as the largest and most comprehensive pro-AV event in the world. According to the organisers, more than 30,000 professionals from 80 countries are expected to check out the 850 exhibitors.
Controversial Form - Police have defended their use of a controversial form that requires live music venues to hand over details of performers, promoters and fans. Form 696 has helped cut shootings and stabbings in and around London gig venues, the Metropolitan Police said. The Met introduced the risk assessment form to identify gigs where trouble might flare up, partly in response to black-on-black violence. But it has been criticised for being heavy-handed and racially motivated.
Thomas Bowen, head of the Met team that deals with Form 696, said: "A co-ordinated effort, and 696 assisting the process of identifying potential gang conflict, is undoubtedly contributing towards that reduction of shooting incidents in licensed premises." One in 20 shootings now happened in or around licensed premises, he said - down from one in six at the start of 2007. Around 70 London pubs and clubs are currently required to complete the form.
It recently came in for criticism from the House of Commons Culture select committee, which recommended that the form be scrapped, saying it imposed "unreasonable conditions on events" and "goes beyond" the Licensing Act. It has also come under fire from Feargal Sharkey, former Underto
