Eurovision - in 30 minutes

By Chris West

The Eurovision Song Contest is the world's greatest televised music event. This May, it will be happening in Liverpool, home of The Beatles...

 

What can we expect? How does it work? What's the point of it? Will I enjoy it? And why on earth is Australia participating in a European event?

 

Chris West, author of a highly acclaimed book on the history of the contest ('A feast for any Eurovision fan' according to Graham Norton), answers all these questions, and many more, in this short, expert guide.

 

Take half an hour of your life to get yourself in the mood for this unique, diverse, exciting occasion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: CWTK
• Release date: Feb 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215196953

Chris West

Chris West is a bestselling business author, novelist and writer on psychology. He studied counselling at Norwich City College and specialized in Transactional Analysis. He lives in the UK. 

Book preview

In a Nutshell...

The Eurovision Song Contest is the world’s biggest regular televised music event. The Grand Final is watched by an estimated 160 million people.

This year, for the first time since 1998, it is being held in the UK. The venue will be the Liverpool Arena. Formally, however, the hosts will be Ukraine. Robin Kemp, Head of Creative at Culture Liverpool, has said, "This is their party, it just happens to be in our house." Exactly how this will work out is yet to be seen – but expect a fascinating meeting of cultures.

This is happening because it is a convention that the winner hosts the next year’s contest. Ukraine won in 2022, but, much as we all wanted it to be, Kyiv was never going to be a safe venue for 2023. The UK’s Sam Ryder came second in that contest, so the hosting duties have fallen to us.

There will be 37 participant individual singers or acts, each representing a different country. Almost all these countries are European, though a handful are not (Why? I’ll explain later).

There will be two semi-finals, on the Tuesday and Thursday before the Grand Final, which is on Saturday, May 13th at 8pm. The Grand Final winner is decided by a 50/50 mixture of expert (= ‘jury’) votes and public televotes from each participant country, plus a 38th televote from ‘the rest of the world’ (an innovation for this year’s contest: it’s still not quite clear how this will work). The semis will be decided by televote only, as last year there was illegal collaboration by some of the juries at that stage of the competition.

The Eurovision Song Contest was first held in 1956, in Lugano in Switzerland. It has taken place every year since then, apart from 2020 when it was cancelled due to the COVID pandemic. Ireland is the most successful entrant: it has won seven times. Sweden has six victories under its belt, and four countries have five: France, the UK, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. (Luxembourg? More about that below.) Norway holds the record for coming last, eleven times, but it has also won three times. Ireland’s Johnny Logan is the only artist to have won the contest twice. He also wrote a winning song for his compatriot Linda Martin.

The UK first participated in 1957, took a raincheck in 1958 but has competed every time since 1959. We rode high in the contest in from 1964 to 1977, but since then the UK’s performance has been erratic. Sam Ryder’s near-victory in 2022 ended a particularly dismal run of results that lasted for most of this century. Could this be a new start for the UK in Eurovision?

Ukraine, by contrast, has been one of the most successful participants in the 21st century contest.

Eurovision is still regarded by some people as a piece of rather embarrassing musical fluff. I have 30 minutes to convince you that this is no longer true. Modern Eurovision has moved on a long way since its ‘ballad and schlager’ beginnings. It is quirky, colourful and exciting. Yes, it likes a bit of drama – so does everyone who reads fiction or goes to the movies. It offers a huge range of musical experiences, some contemporary, some more traditional (and others simply off the wall). It is a showcase for the very latest stage and screen technology – though it has retained an old-school sense of sporting competition