For my current work in progress I’ve chosen a real life event as background: The Eurovision Song Contest. I’ve attended one of those contests in 2013 and decided to pick that particular event as setting. 

Image credit: TVLine

The question for me was whether to use the actual people and celebrities who were present and performed in the show as characters in my novel or not.

If you watch shows and programmes like “South Park”, “Ab Fab” and “Tracey Ullman” they all use known celebrities and poke fun at them. It seemed silly to make up countries and singers when using the real ones gives a much more realistic flavour and the opportunity for insider jokes.

So I’ve started contacting agents and managers of said people to ask formally for permission. Not that I thought they could refuse me, after all I’m offering a very benign portrayal of said…