Wise lessons for Joost: Friezin Froukje Bouma has experience at the Eurovision Song Contest. ‘I would do it again with love’

How do you end up in the Eurovision Song Contest as a participant? How are things going there? What do you gain from it, and what use is it afterward?

Froukje Bouma, born in a Frisian family of teachers in Appingedam, knows all about it. She is the manager of Froukje, Wende and S10 (and also had Joost in her client base for a while). S10, Stien den Hollander, participated two years ago, on behalf of the Netherlands, in Turin.

And S10 really wanted that. “Especially during those corona times, when there was so little perspective, that wish became stronger. And when the Eurovision Song Contest was in Rotterdam, she really thought: ‘Oh, great, I want that too!’”

But ‘wanting’ alone won’t get you there. Froukje: “I said something like: ‘Oh nice, but small chance.’ But as is often the case with Stien’s plans: it is difficult, but it still works.”

Hundreds of registrations

They visited Cornald Maas and Sander Lantinga of the selection committee. He receives several registrations, hundreds even. But an interview will follow with the more serious, professional candidates.

“So that we also got an idea of ​​what it all entails. Practical things: when does your song have to be out, how long do you have to be there, how long do you have to clear your agenda. We were unlucky slash lucky that we just came out of corona, so we didn’t have much to cancel. It was a very welcome adventure, after two years of being indoors.”

On the other hand, the selection committee wanted to know what kind of meat he had in store. “Can this person handle it, is there a good team around him? Because Stien has always been very open about her mental problems, that was also a fair question: can she cope? Because something is coming your way.”

All such things are taken into account, but in the end it’s all about the song. There was no music discussed during that first conversation. Ultimately, Camp S10 submitted two songs. Stien decided that at the last minute The depth had to be added, she had just made a demo of it the day before. “She had a good feeling about that. And it turned out to be mutual.”

Sitting at home on King’s Day

That’s why the entire team flew to Turin, just under two weeks before the final. Before then, they had to stay indoors on King’s Day so as not to run the risk of corona infection. Not the only disappointment. “We had seen videos of when Douwe Bob participated, that his plane was completely decorated. Well, that wasn’t the case with us.”

Once in Turin, the circus started right away. The rehearsals. In the first, the Dutch team was given 30 minutes to see whether the approach that had been worked so hard in the Netherlands, the stage act, also worked.

“There we were, with the director, the lighting person, the art director , the head of the delegation and me. You are not allowed to operate anything yourself, you are dependent on the lighting man, the cameraman. Whether they also received your interpretation.”

After about four times The depth in that half hour the clock started again, for 30 minutes of feedback. “You have to get as much done as possible during that time. You have to know what you are betting on, you cannot change everything. It never turns out exactly as you plan it. But you have to guarantee the climax.”

This was followed by another rehearsal and feedback cycle, this time lasting 15 minutes per block. Then the dress rehearsal and the semi-final.

No good food, nice shopping

“These are really long days. You think: almost two weeks in Italy, good food, good shopping. But you have to be in that all day venue are. The flag parade, sitting through the entire show for hours. It’s a lot of waiting. But you’re also not going to grab your laptop and do some emails, there’s no room for that at all. You are tense all the time, you also look at what others are doing. It’s a matter of enormous boredom and a lot of tension. You are really completely in that bubble.”

Where it was not always pleasant to be. Only the coffee and Red Bull were free. “It’s not about the money for me, but a sandwich or something would have been nice.” And all those crew members who were busy taking photos, “all the time!” That was quite unsafe.”

She hopes that Joost will have a tighter organization in Sweden than team S10 in Italy. “You can prepare everything yourself, but you are still at the mercy of the circumstances. The viewer at home doesn’t realize things like that.”

Sympathy vote

S10 was in the first semi-final on Tuesday. After the euphoria of having advanced to the final on Saturday, the schedule became somewhat more airy. Only afterwards did the team understand that S10 had come second in that semi-final, at the moment you only hear whether you have made it through or not. The organization does use such data, also to determine the order in the final.

“We had pretty good cards for the final,” says Froukje, but no one could compete with the avalanche of votes for Ukraine. “In the semi-final, Stien broke emotionally, and that was something of a difference sympathy vote on.”

Ultimately, S10 came ninth? Tenth? “Eleventh,” corrects Froukje. “That’s the joke, if you don’t win, people don’t know where you end up. That doesn’t matter anymore.” In the meantime, she calls the scoring “quite smooth.” Or actually: “A public slaughter. That it is then assessed what artists have worked on for six months. Coming last is really terrible. When we didn’t get any points at all in the beginning, Stien said: ‘I want to leave here’. I wanted that too, but you had to wait it out.”

But yeah, eleventh

So eleventh. And then back home. The head of the delegation had said something like this: if you finish in the first ten, Schiphol will be full. In the first five: packed. Do you win? Then it’s complete packed . But yeah, eleventh. “Security was arranged and everything. But there was no one there! We had a great laugh about that afterwards.”

After that Eurovision adventure, S10 was not faced with a black hole, but a busy festival summer. It was good for her and her career. “It has made her more of a celebrity. She learned a lot from it, and so did I. What you experience, that whole media swirl, performing under pressure… How do you focus, how do you maintain your concentration, how do you ensure that your voice remains good? She has that under pressure no time learned. It was such an effort, we endured it with pleasure. That has also made our bond stronger.”

Froukje Bouma has every confidence in the chances of her former client Joost in Malmö. “Joost is such an artist, in all areas. The marketing, that visual, the content. He knows exactly what he’s doing. If Stien and I wake up tomorrow and can participate again, I would play that game more like he does.”

She looks back on this entire undertaking with fondness. “It was great, one of the best things in my career. I would happily do it again.”

The documentary will be on NPO Start from May 20 S10 – that I continue to do well can be seen, including about S10’s experiences at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2022. Television broadcast: NPO3, May 22, 9:10 PM

Joost Klein will perform last in the second semi-final on May 9 of the Eurovision Song Contest 2024 in Malmö.