It’s Eurovision Time!
Get ready for the much-loved and often-lampooned musical spectacle.
To millions of devotees across Europe and around the world, May is synonymous with the Eurovision Song Contest, the world’s biggest, most bizarre international televised singing competition. This year, it’s set to take place in Rotterdam from May 18 to 22 (at press time, it wasn’t known if it would include a live audience). Here are 25 surprising facts you may not have known about this much-loved, often-lampooned spectacle.
1Eurovision has been staged since 1956, making it the world’s longest-running international television contest (although the 2020 event was cancelled due to the pandemic). Based upon the Sanremo Music Festival, an Italian song contest that began in 1951, its aim was to bring together European countries post-war. It is organised under the auspices of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the world’s largest union of public-service media.
2Its basic format is unchanged: Countries submit original songs, performed live and broadcast by the EBU from an auditorium in the hosting nation. The voting system in place since 2016 works like this: after all the entries have been performed, viewers cast votes for the other nations’ songs (they can’t vote for their own); these votes are combined with those of EBU-approved juries of music professionals, and the one with the most points wins. And the prize?
The triumphant performer simply receives a trophy and the prestige of having won; their country is then invited to host the event the following year.
3The first contest was held in Lugano, Switzerland, in 1956 and featured seven countries, each submitting two songs. It was won by Lys Assia for the host nation.
4The contest always begins with the prelude to Te Deum, composed by Marc-Antoine Charpentier in the 17th century. Each participating broadcaster is required to screen the show in its entirety, skipping only the interval break to air advertising. Some of the acts that play the interval have become household names – perhaps most famously, the Riverdance act got its start at the interval in Dublin in 1994.
5Under the current voting system, in place since 2016, the highest-scoring winner is Salvador Sobral of Portugal who won the 2017 contest in Kiev. Under the previous voting system, the highest-scoring winner was Alexander Rybak of Norway in 2009.
6It is the world’s biggest live music event; in 2019, 182 million viewers tuned in to the contest in Tel Aviv. Eurovision’s largest live attendance was in 2001: almost 38,000 people were at Copenhagen’s Parken Stadium.
7Fifty-two countries have participated at least once. Eligibility is not determined by geographic inclusion within the continent of Europe; competing countries have included Australia and Morocco. If Australia ever wins, it would co-host the following year’s contest within a country in the EBU. France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK automatically qualify for the final, as they are the biggest financial contributors to the EBU. Romania was expelled from Eurovision 2016 due to unpaid debt to the EBU.
8Song entries must be no longer than three minutes. The shortest song in the contest’s history is
Finland’s Aina Mun Pitää, which ran for a mere one minute and 27 seconds in 2015. In total, more than 1500 songs have been performed at Eurovision. It would take nearly 72 hours to listen to all of them without a break.
9The most- covered Eurovision song is Domenico Modugno’s
Nel Blu Dipinto di Blu, also known as Volare. It placed third for Italy in 1958, and has since been covered by the likes of Dean Martin, Cliff Richard and David Bowie.
10With seven victories, Ireland is the most successful country in the contest’s history. It is the only nation to win three in a row (1992, 1993, 1994). Sweden has won six times, while Luxembourg, France, the Netherlands and the UK have each triumphed on five occasions. At the
bottom? Norway has come last a record 11 times – on four occasions with the dreaded ‘nul points’.
11In 1969, four countries topped the scoreboard with an equal number of points: the UK, Spain, the Netherlands and France. In the absence of a tie-break rule, all of them had to be declared the winner. Today, in the event of a tie, the song that receives points from the most countries is declared the victor.
12Songwriter/composer Ralph Siegel has taken part a whopping 24 times, with his songs representing five countries: Germany, Luxembourg, Montenegro, San Marino and Switzerland. In 1982, he penned Germany’s winning entry, A Little Peace.
13The smallest place to host the event was Millstreet in County Cork, Ireland, in 1993. The village had a population of 1500 – although its Green Glens Arena venue, normally an equestrian centre, could hold up to 8000 people.
14Between 1978 and 1998, all songs had to be performed in a national language. Now the majority are sung partially or entirely in English. Norway’s winning song in 1995 contained only 24 words, accompanied by long violin solos.
15Eurovision is renowned for its embracing of non-heteronormative performers. In 1998, a transgender woman, Dana International, won the contest for
Israel, while bearded drag queen Conchita Wurst triumphed for Austria in 2014.
16Current rules require contest participants to be at least 16 years of age, but prior to 1990, there was no age limit. The youngest- ever winner was Sandra Kim, aged 13, for Belgium in 1986. The oldest was Dave Benton, who won for Estonia in 2001 aged 50 years and 101 days. In 2012, Buranovskiye Babushki, comprising eight elderly women, represented Russia in Azerbaijan, where they finished second.
17Eurovision’s youngest- ever principal performer was 11-year-old Nathalie Pâque, who represented France in 1989. The eldest participant, at age 95, was backing performer Emil Ramsauer from the Swiss band Takasa in 2013.
18When Ukrainian singer Ruslana won Eurovision in 2004, she was rewarded with a seat in Parliament. Dana Scallon, who won for Ireland in 1970, later served as a Member of the European Parliament and ran for the Irish presidency.
19Spain’s La La La from 1968 contained no fewer than 138 ‘La’s’.
20Before 1998, each act was suppor ted by a live orchestra, and every country brought its own conductor. Today, there is no live music at Eurovision; all songs have to be performed using pre-recorded backing tracks.
21In the 1960s and 70s, the Netherlands, France, Monaco and Luxembourg all refused to host Eurovision because of the cost of staging the event; the UK stepped in each time.
22Eurovision has long been plagued by accusations of bias and unfair political bloc voting. Terry Wogan, the longstanding presenter of the contest on British television, stood down in 2008, saying: “The voting used to be about the songs. Now it’s about national prejudices. We [the United Kingdom] are on our own. We had a very good song, a very good singer, we came joint last. I don’t want to be presiding over another debacle.”
23Pol it ics has somet imes played a role in Eurovision. Austria boycotted the 1969 contest in Madrid because Spain at that time was ruled by the dictator Francisco Franco. In 1974, France withdrew from the contest as a mark of respect for President Georges Pompidou, whose funeral was being held on the same day. And in 1978, Jordanian TV refused to broadcast the Israeli entry, showing viewers images of f lowers instead. When Israel went on to win, Jordan announced the victor as second-placed Belgium.
24In 2009, the EBU demanded that Georgia change the lyrics to its controversial entry We Don’t Wanna Put In for Eurovision in Moscow, due to the song’s references to Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin. It was thought to have been negat ively loaded against Russia as a result of the previous year’s Russo-Georgian armed conflict. The country refused to comply, and withdrew from the contest.
25Eurovision has been the launchpad for global superstars; one example is French-Canadian singing sensation Céline Dion, who won for Switzerland by a single point in 1988. But Sweden’s ABBA is arguably the most famous Eurovision winner of all time, enjoying phenomenal worldwide success since its 1974 victory with Waterloo. In fact, in 2005 that song was voted the most popular of the contest’s first 50 years. What could the coming years hold?