Your essential Eurovision guide - visit our Liverpool gallery for exclusive art for fans!

Above: Castle Fine Art Liverpool celebrating Eurovision 2023.

We asked Eurovision expert Mark Cook to provide the only guide you need for the big event. When you're not at the Castle Fine Art gallery, there are lots of things to do!

It’s May and the biggest and best Eurovision party ever is finally under way in Liverpool as the UK co-hosts the song contest with last year’s winners, war-torn Ukraine. The 37 contestants have already started rehearsing, and now begins a two-week circus of events both cultural and otherwise. The city on the Mersey, arguably the birthplace of pop music and a renowned party town, is ready.

As an (ahem) veteran of 16 Eurovisions myself - from Belgrade to Baku, and Copenhagen to Kyiv - I can safely say that the home of The Beatles has put more effort into the contest and all the surrounding brouhaha than any other host city (and this includes the uberfan Swedes). Last year in lovely (sunny!) Turin, apart from the official posters, the only evidence we saw of Eurovision’s presence outside the main arena was a random black and white photo of Sandie Shaw - the UK’s first winner, in 1967 - in a shop window.

Just walk around Liverpool now and everywhere is festooned with bunting, the eye-catching contest logo and the slogan United By Music. Along the way you might bump into one of the 12 illuminated songbird sculptures that have popped up around the city. The soloveiko - nightingale in English – is the national bird of Ukraine and a symbol of song and happiness. Each one reveals a different story. You might spot another songbird too - redheaded in plumage - dotted around. There are 20 cut-outs of Sonia, the perky local popstrel who was the runner-up at Eurovision in 1993. She will also perform in the contest final’s interval act, The Liverpool Songbook, a homage to the city’s musical heritage. Might Sir Paul McCartney make an appearance? It would be a perfect ending.

The official EuroFestival itself features 24 new commissions, 19 of them involving Ukrainian artists, from English National Opera to community and school projects, including one where the inside of Liverpool Cathedral has been transformed into a railway carriage, a symbol of the Ukrainian escape from the Russian invasion

Izyum To Liverpool is a multi-channel video installation by Katya Buchatska, in which you can go on a poignant train journey. Filmed in real-time, it starts with views of liberated Ukrainian regions moving to Western cities; it's about the fragility of our normal lives, loss and uncertainty. Runs to May 14.

You can also Immerse yourself in the stories of artists on the frontline in Ukraine as you walk the streets of Liverpool. With Fire and Rage is an immersive audio experience combining testimony with photography, visual art, poetry and music – all you need is a smartphone and headphones. It features some of Ukraine’s most innovative artists and takes you from music concerts in metro stations during air raids, to smuggling artworks out of cities as rockets fall, to creating subversive street art under Russian occupation.

Until May 14 at the Museum of Liverpool a Eurovision Walk of Fame experience invites visitors to explore, see and hear iconic contest moments from years past through AR technology. A section of the iconic steps outside the museum will have interactive scannable elements, giving visitors the chance to relive Eurovision’s colourful history. On May 9 at the Eurovision Village on Pierfront, opera and Eurovision collide as the English National Opera Chorus are joined by former Eurovision contestants Ruslana,

Sonia (there she is again!) and Linda Martin, as well as international opera stars Russell Watson, Ella Taylor and Ellie Neate to perform classical arrangements of some of the contest’s greatest hits. Expect bright costumes, rousing choirs, fabulous divas and sing-along tunes. Public screenings of the live contests - two semi finals (May 9 and 11), and the grand final May 13 - range from the Philharmonic Hall and Museum of Liverpool to the Mersey ferries and the EuroVillage. Every venue possible seems to be screening the live shows - though most are probably sold out. But you don’t have to be at all the big parties and performances to enjoy a city in the glittering throes of Eurovision. There is a special, infectious atmosphere of happiness and camaraderie among visitors, fans and locals - just turn up and enjoy.