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Happy birthday, Eurovision!

Happy birthday, Eurovision Song Contest. Today it is 66 years ago that the first Eurovision song contest was held.

The Eurovision Song Contest was created after the coronation of the British Queen Elizabeth II was broadcast on French television. They wanted to use the equipment purchased for this for other events. A song contest, modeled after the Italian festival of Sanremo, was one of the ideas.

The first song contest took place in Lugano, Switzerland. Ten countries wanted to participate, in the end there were seven. They each presented two songs. There was no voting as we know it now. The jury consisted of two members from each country. Remarkable: Luxembourg had no jury, two Swiss did the honors for that country. At the end of the evening, chairman Rolf Liebermann only announced that the song “Refrain” had won. That was one of Lys Assia‘s two Swiss entries.

Little image has been preserved of the first Eurovision; only a part of the reprise, when Lys Assia had won.

Wanna know more? Have a look at our 1956 page!

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Eurovision 2025
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Eurovision 2025 in Geneva or Basel

Swiss broadcaster SRG has announced the final two candidates to host the 69th Eurovision Song Contest: Basel and Geneva. SRG has narrowed down the initial bids to these two cities. One of them will host the contest in Switzerland in May 2025, with the final decision to be made in late August. Cities had until the end of June to submit their bids based on a detailed list of requirements. Important criteria included arena facilities, public transport, sustainability, hotel availability, security, waste management, investment, event experience, and city support. A Eurovision Song Contest working group reviewed the bids from Basel, Geneva, Zurich, and Berne/Biel. This review involved both quantitative and qualitative criteria, as well as the cities’ commitment and creative ideas. The goal is to make Eurovision 2025 an unforgettable event. The accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) supervised the assessment of the bids. Following the recommendations of the working group, the ESC 2025 Steering Committee, led by SRG Director General Gilles Marchand, chose Basel and Geneva as the final candidates. Geneva, Commons.wikimedia.org Basel, Commons.wikimedia.org Switzerland will host the 69th Eurovision Song Contest in 2025 because of Nemo’s win in Malmö with the song “The Code,” which scored 591 points in the Grand Final, marking Switzerland’s third Eurovision victory. Share

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