Typo turns Eurovision gay
Organizers for next month's Eurovision Song Contest in Düsseldorf admitted on Wednesday an embarrassing typo in an informational pamphlet for the competition mixed up the German words for “schools” with “gays.”
Instead of an “Aktionstag der Schulen,” or “Schools' Day of Action,” page 45 of the booklet read: “Aktionstag der Schwulen.” This was even translated into an English version as “Gay’s (sic) Day of Action.”
Roman von der Wiesche, spokesman for Düsseldorf’s marketing and tourism board, confirmed 65,000 pamphlets in German and 35,000 in English had to be recalled and corrected with a sticker.
The legendarily camp Eurovision Song Contest has a strong following in the gay community, but there was no indication the mistake was made intentionally.
The English pamphlet also had the blatant typo “Wielcome to Duesseldorf” on its first page. That mistake was be corrected by hand as organizers ink over the extra “i” with pens, since there was no time to reprint the materials.
The Rhineland city of Düsseldorf pushed hard to host this year’s Eurovision, beating out the likes of Berlin and Hamburg. Germany’s winning entrant in 2010, Lena Meyer-Landrut, will attempt to defend her title on May 14.
DPA/The Local/mry
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Instead of an “Aktionstag der Schulen,” or “Schools' Day of Action,” page 45 of the booklet read: “Aktionstag der Schwulen.” This was even translated into an English version as “Gay’s (sic) Day of Action.”
Roman von der Wiesche, spokesman for Düsseldorf’s marketing and tourism board, confirmed 65,000 pamphlets in German and 35,000 in English had to be recalled and corrected with a sticker.
The legendarily camp Eurovision Song Contest has a strong following in the gay community, but there was no indication the mistake was made intentionally.
The English pamphlet also had the blatant typo “Wielcome to Duesseldorf” on its first page. That mistake was be corrected by hand as organizers ink over the extra “i” with pens, since there was no time to reprint the materials.
The Rhineland city of Düsseldorf pushed hard to host this year’s Eurovision, beating out the likes of Berlin and Hamburg. Germany’s winning entrant in 2010, Lena Meyer-Landrut, will attempt to defend her title on May 14.
DPA/The Local/mry
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