5,000 hairpins and 482 costumes: Eurovision will be one of BBC’s biggest events

This year’s Eurovision Song Contest will see 1,000 litres of hairspray, 150m of costume rails and more than 3,000 make-up brushes used.

The shows at Liverpool Arena will start this week, with semi-finals on Tuesday and Thursday and the final taking place on Saturday.

The event, hosted by the UK on behalf of last year’s winners Ukraine, is one of the biggest produced by the BBC.

According to the broadcaster, the hair and make-up teams will use more than 100 wigs and hairpieces, 1,000 litres of hairspray, more than 3,000 make-up brushes, and 5,000 hairpins to create looks for every performer.

Rails measuring 150m – equivalent to three Olympic-sized swimming pools – will hold the 482 costumes which have been made for the shows using 20,000m of thread.

The manufacturing of the costumes was done in the UK and Ukraine, which was unable to host the competition due to the Russian invasion.

The show will be watched by 160 million viewers worldwide, with over eight hours of live TV and 50 live feeds.

To stage it, there are more than 600 rigging points, 140 tons of steel ground support structure, and 1km of additional steel truss work being added to the arena.

The event will feature eight miles of cabling for lighting, sound, video and special effects, more than 2,000 specialist lighting fixtures, 200 custom staging decks, 950 square metres of staging for the main stage and 500 square metres of staging for the green room.

The lighting design includes 23,700 individual light sources and 2,500 automated colour-changing robotic lights, while sound will be captured by 150 microphones.

BBC director of unscripted Kate Phillips said: “As these statistics show this is one of the biggest events the BBC has ever produced.

“Coming straight after such a significant and spectacular moment in history, we aim to produce an unforgettable and utterly joyful Eurovision, on behalf of Ukraine.

“Like the coronation, Eurovision has so many skilled and talented people from across the BBC working on it.

“Our brilliant team in Liverpool are making sure that all three live shows are simply must-see TV, for audiences across the UK, Europe and beyond.”