27Apr 2020 by DS News Team
Blinkfestivalen’ 2020 Will Be Held But Without Spectators

Blinkfestivalen’ 2020 Will Be Held But Without Spectators

Leaders, Newsfeed
In 14 years of its existence, Blink Festivalen in Western Norway has grown from a decidely local affair to one of those world's premier competitions in both xcskiing and biathlon, offering an absolutely unique blend of top stars presence and amateur, mostly kids, competitions at the same tracks. Last year figures: 3000 participants, 100000 spectators and the budget well over NOK 20 million. Plus prime time on NRK. That's the World Championships level! Good news: the anniversary 15th edition this year will happen as planned on August 5-8. Bad news: without the audiences on purpose-built terraces in Sandnes. Gatherings of more than 500 people are currently banned in Norway. Good news: it all will be televised by NRK with the signal distribution across all of Europe via EBU (biathlon races…
Read More
27Apr 2020 by DS News Team
Italy Closed To Foreign Visitors Till Year’s End? UPDATED With Official Reaction

Italy Closed To Foreign Visitors Till Year’s End? UPDATED With Official Reaction

Newsfeed
Italy's borders will stay closed to foreign visitors until the end of the year. That's from Dario Franceschini, the country's minister of culture and tourism, in an interview with La Repubblica. UPDATE: So, now Italian government officials emphatically DENY that the country would be closed to foreign visitors till the end of 2020. Good to know! However, since no other timeframe for re-opening of the country to external tourism was provided, not even tentatively, we won't withdraw the original story until we hear something more concrete. With tourism providing some 14% of the Italian GDP and hundreds of thousands of people in the world with planned trips to Italy, it wouldn't be out of place to hear more specifics. There is still a lot of time to go to the…
Read More