Eurovision Fans Travel to Bangkok for the Contest's First Asian Edition

Simon Robinson, 63, traveled to Bangkok for the Eurovision Song Contest, according to The New York Times. Robinson now lives in Melbourne, Australia, and the Bangkok event is the competition's first edition held in Asia.

Robinson first watched Eurovision at the age of eight, with his family in Yorkshire, England. It was the year Britain's Mary Hopkin finished second behind Ireland's Dana. Decades later, he made the trip to Thailand to see the contest in person.

Lee Hudson, an American television executive based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, has also followed the contest closely. Hudson has watched Eurovision since 2012, and the same report places Hudson among the fans in Bangkok.

The crowd was not made up only of longtime viewers. According to the report, some of the fans who traveled to Bangkok were Europeans living in Asia who were looking for a sense of nostalgia, while others were Americans attending Eurovision for the first time.