Australian fan receives surprise birthday gift

14 May 2016 at 12:00 CEST

Rohan Sewell and Alice Gibbons Andres Putting (EBU)

On Tuesday 10th May, Alice Gibbons, from Australia, was celebrating her birthday. She, along with her boyfriend, Rohan Sewell had travelled all the way from Australia to Stockholm to watch the contest at the Globe Arena, and to support the Australian entrant, Dami Im. What Alice didn't know was that her boyfriend had been working for months on arranging some birthday surprises, and that Eurovision.tv was in on the act when we met them at the Australian party in Stockholm.

Every year the EBU receives requests from fans all over the world for accreditation to the Eurovision Song Contest. Unfortunately due to restrictions of space etc, only a handful of these can be approved, mostly at the discretion of the participating broadcasters. Sometimes the EBU will approve an accreditation if there is an interesting story or special circumstances behind the application.

Melbourne to Stockholm

One such application came from Rohan Sewell in Australia. He, and his girlfriend, Alice Gibbons, who is a big fan of the contest, were travelling all the way over from Melbourne to Stockholm, and the trip would coincide with Alice's birthday, so he wanted to organise something special for her - perhaps an accreditation for the contest? The EBU were only too happy to assist, and to make it a surprise, the accreditation would be handed over by Eurovision.tv at the Australian party in Stockholm.

All, Alice knew on the day was that she would be going to the Australian party, and knew that Dami Im would be performing at the party. Rohan and Alice were accompanied to the party by around another ten Australian fans, none of whom knew what Rohan had lined up for his girlfriend.

Watch what happened when Eurovision.tv decided to seemingly randomly interview some Australian fans.

'Happy Birthday to you'

The surprises though didn't end at receiving the Fan Accreditation. Shortly afterwards at the Australian party, Dami Im performed a couple of songs, including her Eurovision entry Sound Of Silence. Then Dami Im announced that there was a fan in the audience who was celebrating her birthday....of course it was Alice, and Dami invited her up on stage and sung Happy Birthday to complete a memorable day for her.