Series / Eurovision Song Contest

Europe's (and Australia's, Israel's, and part of West Asia's) Favourite TV Show

Drag acts and bad acts,
and Terry Wogan's wig!
Mad acts and sad acts,
it was Johnny Logan's gig!

— Irelande Douze Pointe, Ireland's entry to the 2008 contest. "Sung" by Dustin the Turkey, a puppet.

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) operates a network known as Eurovision, which is primarily used to distribute coverage of special events (such as sporting events, the Pope's Easter Mass, the New Year's concert in Vienna, etc.) throughout its member broadcasters. It produces very few programmes in its own right, but this is far and away the best known. So much so, in fact, that many folks would be quite surprised to learn that "Eurovision" could refer to anything but the Eurovision Song Contest, accredited by Guinness World Records as the longest-running annual TV music contest in the world.

The contest has run since 1956 — although 2020's Contest was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic — and was quite well-respected in its early years, with established artists such as Cliff Richard and Serge Gainsbourg taking part, and others, such as Dana and Sandie Shaw, launching successful careers off the back of the show. The original idea was to foster post-World War II unity among European nations outside the communist bloc and showcase their varied musical talent. What's interesting to note that this contest is open not just to members of the European Union, nor just European countries, but to all countries which are active broadcasting members of the EBU ^note strictly speaking, the countries aren't members of the EBU so much as the broadcasters — so the United Kingdom does not participate in the Contest per se, it's the BBC who participates. The UK's ITV group are also members, so if the BBC ever tire of the event then ITV could theoretically take up the mantle, which also includes Israel, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan (As Graham Norton, current commentator for the United Kingdom via BBC, said on his show when explaining the premise, "We use 'European' very loosely."). Australia is also allowed to compete. With the contest taking a credibility dive in The '70s, the only acts to become international stars for the next few decades were ABBA, Riverdance^note Riverdance wasn't participating in the contest but was conceived and debuted as the interval act for Eurovision 1994 and Céline Dion^note Performers do not have to be citizens of the country they represent, hence how the Canadian diva was able to represent Switzerland, though several performers have remained popular in their home countries after entering the show. This has started to change in recent years with many participants remaining internationally active thanks to the rise of digital distribution (and a rise in quality of songs), with 2019 and 2021 winners Duncan Laurence and Måneskin looking to potentially become the first world-famous artists since ABBA to springboard off the contest.

The format of the show has changed over the years, but remains broadly the same: First a series of songs is performed, then voting takes place to determine a winner. The votes from each country are "telephoned" (now shown by live feed) in to the studio one at a time, providing dramatic tension. The traditional way to start this is to say "Hello, [host city], this is [capital of particular country] calling". The winner hosts next year's contest, which can do wonders for the tourist industry in obscure cities, though it can be ruinously expensive to host.

Songs must be original, no more than 3 minutes long and contain some lyrics (no Instrumentals^note this might not be true; no-one has ever tried it). Between 1966 and 1972, and 1977 to 1998, songs had to be sung in one of the official languages of the country entering. However, this rule was removed after a long string of wins by Ireland, who were felt to have an unfair advantage by being one of only three countries able to sing in English^note For the curious, the other two countries were the United Kingdom (obviously), and Malta which was rapidly becoming the lingua franca of Europe. Any language requirements that are imposed are now at the discretion of the individual broadcasters.

At the contest, each country cannot have more than 6 people on stage during their performing spot, and no animals are allowed. Starting with the 1990 contest, all performers in competition must be at least 16 years old on the day of performance^note before that year, children as young as 11 or 12 have appeared onstage; this rule and the existence of a Junior version means that Sandra Kim, who won for Belgium in 1986 aged 13, will remain the show's youngest-ever winner. All vocals must be performed live, a rule that has remained stubbornly in place despite the rising prevalence of vocal sampling^note Croatia was penalized after their 1999 entry was found to have included vocal samples. Norway 2017 also stretched this rule with vocal sampling and manipulation. However, the EBU relaxed this requirement in 2021 contest in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and allowed recorded backing vocals on a trial basis. Until 1998, all music had to be live as well. The host nation would provide an orchestra to back all the competitors and each nation would send a conductor (with the host nation keeping a conductor of retainer for those countries without one). Any instruments not included with the orchestra would be provided by one of the people on the stage. In 1999, host nation Israel decided to drop the live orchestra as a cost-cutting measure and performances were sung to backing tracks; this practice has remained in place for every contest since.

Before 1997, all voting was done by panels of expert judges. However, following accusations of bloc voting, public phone votes were introduced. Some have argued that this has only made it worse; callers can't vote for their own country, but emigrants can vote for their homeland. Also, UK's zero points in 2003 was alleged to be an expression of continental Europe's backlash over their involvement in the recent USA-led invasion of Iraq (although the real reason was probably Jemini's horrifying off-key singing), and by 2007 this had become so prevalent among former communist countries that Malta fixed their votes in protest. The situation in 2007, followed by a similar (but less prevalent) repeat the next year, prompted the EBU to change the voting rules to a hybrid system which give jury and popular votes a 50-50 footing in weighing the results, which contributed to leveling the contest for Western countries from 2009 onwards.

The definition of Europe in "Eurovision" has been extended in recent years. Israel has participated since 1973, while the Caucasian nations of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan joined in 2006, 2007 and 2008 respectively. Australia was also invited to participate for the sixtieth anniversary of the contest in 2015, becoming a regular participant from then onwards with their contract set through 2023.

In March 2020, it was announced that the planned 65th edition of the contest (which was set to happen in Rotterdam, Netherlands, following Duncan Laurence's 2019 win) had been canceled due to concerns about the growing COVID-19 pandemic sweeping Europe and the rest of the world. This marked the first-ever instance of the competition not happening since it began in 1956. That same month, preliminary discussions for the 65th edition to remain in Rotterdam for 2021 began, and it was eventually confirmed (in the Europe Shine A Light special) that Rotterdam would indeed host the 2021 Contest. Many participating nations confirmed their intention to keep the artists they'd chosen for 2020 in the following months, with the proviso that they would need to select new songs in accordance with ESC rules. Some of the countries that use national selections to pick their acts invited the incumbent winners back for 2021, while others (namely Italy and Sweden) went ahead with their finals as planned, though many of the representatives that were chosen for 2020 through this system were invited to compete again for re-entry.

There have been a handful of Eurovision spinoffs over the years, most notably including the Junior Eurovision Song Contest (which has been held every autumn since 2003) and the short-lived Eurovision Dance Contest. There have also been attempts at launching foreign versions of the contest, such as an Asian edition that was set to debut in 2018 but got stuck in Development Hell before being cancelled in 2021. The long-teased American version of Eurovision —titled the American Song Contest— eventually debuted its first (and to date, only) edition in 2022 on NBC, with inaugural participation from all fifty states as well as Washington, D.C. and five US territories ^note American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and United States Virgin Islands. Additional spinoffs in Canada and Latin America were also announced in 2022, but neither has gone beyond the development phase since then. Eurovision was previously first broadcast in the United States from 2016 to 2018 on the LGBT-focused cable network LOGO, before Netflix acquired the US streaming rights for the 2019 and 2020 editions.^note This didn't include live streaming of the contest; both semi-finals and the final are added to the service after it already aired in Europe. The 2020 edition obviously never streamed as part of this deal. Likely in conjunction with the official announcement of ASC, Peacock then became the new American streaming home of Eurovision starting with the 2021 edition.^note NBC and Peacock are both subsidiaries of NBCUniversal.

In March 2019, it was announced that a proposed Eurovision film from Will Ferrell and director David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers) was moving forward at Netflix, coinciding with their planned two-year streaming deal in the US. Ferrell, a longtime Eurovision fan himself, previously claimed to have seen every contest since 1999 (when his Swedish wife introduced him to it) and even attended the 2018 competition in Lisbon as preparation for the film. After a brief release date change because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga was finally released in June 2020. The plot of the film follows unlikely Icelandic duo Fire Saga (Ferrell and Rachel McAdams) as they beat the odds to represent their country at Eurovision. Shot partly on location during the 2019 edition in Tel Aviv, the film also features Pierce Brosnan, Dan Stevens, and Demi Lovato in supporting roles, as well as plentiful cameo appearances from previous Eurovision acts.^note In order of appearance: Salvador Sobral, John Lundvik, Anna Odobescu, Bilal Hassani, Loreen, Jessy Matador, Alexander Rybak, Jamala, Elina Nechayeva, Conchita Wurst, and Netta. Although reactions to the film trended mixed-to-positive among fans, the soundtrack was widely praised and even received a Grammy nomination, with "Husavik" (as performed by Molly Sandén) specifically being nominated Best Original Song at the Oscars.

An index of notable Eurovision acts can be found here.

For parodies of the contest, see Inept Talent Show Contestant.

See also the Wikipedia article.

Good Evening, Tropers!

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And now, some examples of tropes as seen in the Eurovision Song Contest / Et maintenant, quelques exemples des tropes vus dans le concours Eurovision de la chanson:

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• Affectionate Parody:
  • Swedish Eurodance performer Markoolio wrote a parody of typical Eurovision music, "Värsta Schlagern".^note "The Worst Hit"; "schlager" is a type of light pop music that frequently appeared in Eurovision for quite a while, especially among central, Nordic, and southeast European countries). And of course, it lampshades all the clichés. The third verse? Translated into English it goes: "Now it gets difficult to figure out/ something new to say, but so what?/ This is just padding/ which people will soon forget about." He actually tried to enter it with a different singer into Melodifestivalen, the Swedish national final, but was turned down.
  • In 2009, Markoolio got into Melodifestivalen as a wild card with "Kärlekssång från mig", a follow-up in the form of a power ballad. The live performance featured a stage show parodying Dima Bilan's performances, with a Funny Background Event involving a man emerging from the piano, who tries to ice skate, almost gets hit in the face by a violinist, and then gets set on fire by the pyrotechnics.
  • Sweden seem to be making a habit of this— one of the interval acts from 2016 was "Love Love Peace Peace", a Troperrific exploration of the most common themes from past Eurovision hits. And then there was "The Nerd Nation", a Mockumentary poking fun at Sweden itself for its obsession with Eurovision. There's also Melodifestivalen 2013's "En Riktig Jävla Schlager", once again playing on the Schlager trope, featuring amongst others Tommy Körberg of Chess fame.
• Always Second Best: The United Kingdom, ending up in second place sixteen times between 1959 and 2022.
  • During their stay in the contest, Russia gained a reputation as "the contestant most likely to finish second". Their only win came in 2008, while they came in second four times between 2000 and 2015 — twice losing out only to contest juggernauts Sweden.
• Anonymous Band: Two of these entered the 2022 contest:
  • Norwegian duo Subwoolfer, whose members perform in yellow wolf masks, go by the aliases "Keith" and "Jim", and who finished 10th in the Grand Final. The duo would eventually confirm that they were Ben Adams and Gaute Ormåsen (which was the most popular theory about their identitites) while performing at Melodi Grand Prix 2023 (Norway's national final).
  • Georgian band Circus Mircus, who didn't make it out of their semi final. While it's widely speculated that Nika Kocharov & Young Georgian Lolitaz, who already competed for Georgia back in 2016, could be the driving force behind Circus Mircus, their manifesto emphasises repeatedly that the band members' individual identities are not relevant to its work:
    2. Your identity does not matter as long as you are a part of Circus Mircus, for no one person can take credit for the movement’s work.
    5. Ask 'WHY', not 'WHO'.
    6. Honor the golden rule of anonymity.
• Arc Number: Russia has had several entries which have a variation of "one" in its name: "Solo" in 2000, "Nobody Hurt No One" in 2005, "Song #1" in 2007, "You Are The Only One" in 2016 and "Uno" in ultimately cancelled 2020.^note 1997's "Primadonna" might also count considering "prima donna" literally means "first lady". And for their 2003 performance, both members of t.A.T.u. had a big 1 on their tops (although this could be a reference to performing 11th).
• Artifact Title: The participation of non-really-European nations Israel, Australia, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan made the title arguably inaccurate, although "Eurovision" technically refers to nations in which Eurovision television broadcasting is shown, which includes all of the nations in the competition except the UK^note The UK watch the competition on a BBC channel that switches programming over to the EBC feed.
  • 1980 saw an African country, Morocco, take part for the first (and only) time.
• Audience Participation: Since 1997, the winner has been chosen by a mix of judges and audience votes, with each accounting for 50% of the points awarded. As of 2024, viewers can vote by phone, text or the official Eurovision app, but (like the judges) cannot vote for their own country's entry. Audience votes are revealed at the very end of the show, after the last judges' votes, and can radically change the scoreboard.
• Award-Bait Song: Occasionally you get a power ballad that sounds like it could easily play over the intro of a James Bond movie.
• Balkanize Me: Perhaps due to the voting blocs spawned by the breakups of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, as well as the lack of effort of the United Kingdom in the 21st century as a united nation, there have been calls for the UK to split themselves up into separate nations much like they do in most sports, and make their own voting block with Ireland, which could happen if Scotland declares independence. Wales in particular even have gone as far as creating a national contest show long in advance dating back to 1969 in preparation if the split up were to happen. Of course if it did happen, it would pose several problems:
  • Since much of the UK's economic power comes from England, they would be the only nation that could possibly keep their "Big 5" status, meaning that Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland would most likely have to compete in the semifinals much like Ireland does. Then of course, there's the financial issues that would come with hosting if one of these nations were to win, especially since they wouldn't have the full financial support of the UK anymore.
  • There's The Irish Question of whether Northern Ireland should join up with Ireland like in Rugby Football or compete separately as they do in association football.
  • Finally the voting bloc these nations would have could easily backfire as not only would they have to compete against one another, there could be vendettas between these nations as along with the issue of nationality, the fact they had to resort to doing this because of the lack of effort back when they participated as a united nation. That said, the spawned rivalries could lead to these nations sending a better quality of entrants as a result, pending they start taking the contest seriously again.
    • Wales took part in the ESC for choirs on its own with the S4C Welsh broadcaster — the bizarre EBU event taking place in Latvia in the summer was advertised in the ESC 2017 — and finished second. The Welsh later partook in the junior contest in 2018, but placed last, having got no points from jurors, although with a passable public score, placing 2nd last the following year after being last with online votes, and withdrawing from the next 2 editions due to COVID. The EBU says they partake alone or the UK partakes, but both cannot occur at once. The U.K. returned as a United entity to this level in 2022, and placed 5th, winning the online vote, heavily damaging the possibility of Wales ever making a solo return to it. Wales would later return to choir contest in 2019, with Scotland joining them.
• Ban on Politics: Political content is forbidden as the contest is officially supposed to be non-political. Many entries have been ordered to change lyrics, costume or staging elements that violate this rule. Failure to comply is grounds for removal from the contest, as seen with Belarus' disqualification in 2021 when both of their submitted songs were deemed unacceptable.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • The contest is presented in English and French, the two official languages of the EBU. In earlier editions, the hosts would say everything in English, French (and the host country's language if not already included). As of the mid to late '90s, the hosts mainly speak English throughout the shows and the only things delivered in French are the spiels on how to vote and the countries' names and points during the qualification and voting sequences.
  • Often, a country will send a bilingual song as their entry, usually in English and their own national language.
• Bookends:
  • The Contest begins and ends with a brief blast of the prelude to Marc-Antoine Charpentier's Te Deum.
  • In 1958, a transmission fault caused the first song - "Nel blu, dipinto di blu" by Domenico Modugno (better known as "Volare") - to not be heard in all countries. To compensate for that, it was performed again after all the other entries.
  • The contests of 1975, 1976 and 1984 were won by the first song to be performed, meaning that they were the first and last song performed.
  • The 2023 final begins and ends with lyrics about songwriting. Austria starts the competition with "Oh my God, you're such a good writer", while the UK closes it with "Instead I wrote a song".
• Bilingual Dialogue: Even if you start singing in your native language, switching into English for the final chorus (or for every chorus) will guarantee international appeal. Compare International Pop Song English.
  • Averted for most of Eurovision's history (from 1958 to 1972 and from 1977 to 1998) because each song had to be sung in the country's language. The winners would often, however, reprise their songs with a Switch Into English. This trope was played most spectacularly by Nicole's Ein bißchen Frieden for Germany in 1982 when she sang in German, French, English, and Dutch, eliciting an applause at each switch.
  • Israel's entries have a weird on-off kind of thing for this. Boaz Mauda's entry, "HaEsh B'Einaiyich" was half-Hebrew, half-English and placed 9th. Shiri Maimon's "Hasheket Shenish'ar" did that, too and it nearly won. David D'Or's "Leha'amin", though, didn't even make the finals. Izabo's "Time" also has a language switch, switching from English to Hebrew in the chorus rather than the verse.
  • The "native-language-only" policy was cancelled in 1998 because of a massive streak of winners that were either in English (Ireland winning in 1992, '93, '94 and '96, plus a United Kingdom victory in 1997, with Ireland finishing second) or had as little text as remotely possible (Norway in 1995). Since then, only four winners were not sung in English at all: 2007's "Molitva" from Serbia, 2017's "Amar Pelos Dois" from Portugal, 2021's "Zitti e buoni" from Italy and 2022's "Stefania" from Ukraine (their first solely in Ukrainian — their other two winners were bilingual).
  • Played disappointingly straight in 2011, where the grand majority of songs were partially or completely in English. 2011 was also notable for being the first time that nobody sang in French (save for one sentence in the chorus of Evelina Sašenko's entry for Lithuania, "C'est ma vie", the rest of which was in English). This is even stranger considering not only was it the Lithuanian entry that used bits of French, but to top it off she's actually ethnically Polish. Even the French entry, Amaury Vassili's "Sognu," was in Corsican rather than French.
  • A similar incident occurred in the 2015 contest as well. Of 40 participating countries, only 7 entries (Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Montenegro, Finland, and Romania) include lyrics in a language other than English. Serbia's "Beauty Never Lies" was their first English-language entry since debuting as an independent entity. Most notably, Israel, whose broadcaster used to require at least half of the lyrics of their entries be in Hebrew, sent an entirely English song in light of their poor qualification record in recent years (and not too surprisingly made it to the final). When Romanian representatives Voltaj toyed with the idea of sending their song "De la capăt" in English (they performed entirely in Romanian in the national final), the backlash was so great they instead opted for a bilingual version and the song was renamed "De la capăt (All Over Again)".
  • And again in 2016: out of 43 acts, only 8 entries (France, Italy, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Austria, Greece, and Ukraine) feature non-English lyrics. Most notably, Austria's song is entirely in French. Spain sent their first ever entry entirely in English, which was very out of character for the country.
  • For 2017: France (with English parts in the chorus), Spain (with an English chorus), Hungary, Portugal, and, in a break with tradition, Belarus (leaving Azerbaijan the sole nation to have never used a national language, briefly touched upon in a multilingual Bulgarian entry when ESC was in Baku in 2012). Croatia sang in English and Italian in a duet for one. All 7 songs were in the final. Indeed, Portugal won in style, an ace achievement for a nation whose loyalty to its language and styles had hitherto been its undoing, but now made it a winner.
  • In 2018, more nations sang in own languages, including Georgia and Armenia singing entirely in their languages for the first time ever (previously only used very little, if at all, in English language songs), Serbia, Albania, Greece, Hungary, Slovenia and Montenegro, as well as the usual French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian suspects. In the semi-finals, Armenia, Greece, Georgia and Montenegro crashed but Albania, Hungary, Serbia and Slovenia (and the well liked Italian language Estonian song) did not.
  • 2019 saw Iceland, Georgia, Albania, Hungary, Poland, Serbia, Slovenia, Portugal, Spain, France, and Italy sing own language entries, while Arabic, Turkish, Danish (alongside German, the first serious entry to use it since 2007, and French) and even Northern Sami and Abkhaz were used in the songs of Italy, San Marino, Denmark, Norway and Georgia respectively. Of these, Albania, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Slovenia and Serbia made it to the final (as well as automatic qualifiers France, Italy and Spain).
  • In 2020, as well as the usual suspects of France^note although partially in English, Italy, Spain and Portugal, Belarus, Croatia, Slovenia and Ukraine would have performed in their own language, whilst Spanish appeared in Georgia's, Russia's, and Serbia's entries (Georgia's entry would also use French, German and Italian, and Serbia's would use English, but was mostly in Serbian). Israel's entry appeared in Amharic, Arabic, English and Hebrew. The oddest one, though, would be Azerbaijan's entry, which would have had Japanese alongside English.
  • 2021: Songs sang exclusively in the native language were from France, Italy, Spain, Ukraine, Albania, and in a break with the norm, Denmark (in another break with tradition, this did NOT include Portugal, whose song “Love Is On My Side” did not feature any Portuguese), predominately own-language material from Russia and Serbia, and songs from Azerbaijan (for the first time ever), Czech Republic, Germany (both for the first time since 2007) and Israel featuring a line or 2 in the native language, whilst the host nation’s singer, who was born in Suriname, sings the chorus of his song in the Sranan Tongo language spoken there.
  • 2022: Lithuania have their first own-language song since 1999 (save for 2 lines at the end of 2018's), Netherlands their second since 1998 in the main contest, and Iceland their third since 1997. In a surprise repeat of 2011, and in spite of 2 French language songs in the top 3 the previous year, there is no song in French in Torino — France's selection was won by a song in a regional language (Breton, a Celtic language, for the first time since 1996). Ukraine’s sending of an own-language entry for the 2nd successive act (both of whom shared a flautist) was key to their mandate for victory, whilst Italy and Slovenia were the only other songs put forward that were exclusively in a non-English native language, but Albania, Cyprus, Moldova, Portugal, San Marino and Spain have songs with lyrics in the native language and in English (and some in Spanish too for Albania), and Serbia uses Latin alongside their native language.
  • 2023: Other than the usual suspects of France, Italy and Spain, Portugal return to singing in their own language, and are joined by Albania, Croatia, Finland, Moldova and Slovenia. Armenia, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine have bilingual songs (their own language and English), while Norway's entry was trilingual (the intro to the song is mostly Italian which ends with a Latin phrase, and the rest of the song is entirely in English). In an impressive show, Czechia^note the new name for the Czech Republic are singing in Bulgarian, Czech, English and Ukrainian. Among the songs predominantly in English, some lyrics feature trace amounts of other languages (Israel, Latvia, Lithuania in their native languages and Austria in Italian).
  • 2024: Armenia, France, Estonia, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, and Spain all sing in their national language. Greece and Ukraine do the same while sprinkling some English lines here and there, while Luxembourg returns to the contest with a song in French (one of the country's three administrative languages) with a chorus partially in English. While Israel and Azerbaijan sing mainly in English, they feature respectively a coda in Hebrew and an Azerbaijani chorus (marking the first proper use of Azerbaijani in an Eurovision song barring some throwaway lines in 2010 and 2021). And, in the debut of an Aboriginal Australian language on the Eurovision stage, Australia includes some Yankunytjatjara in its lyrics. Overall, the ratio of songs entirely in English (19 out of 37) is the lowest since the language rule removal in 1999. Also for the first time since that year, the competition final contains more songs completely or mainly in native tounge than entirely in English or with a token native line (14 out of 26).
• Bowdlerize: The EBU's rules do not allow profanity during competitive performances. This ruling applies to both lyrical content and the staging. Entrants are required to alter their lyrics to remove cursing and change their choreography to avoid rude gestures.
• Boy Band: Several acts, but the noteworthy one is Herreys, winner of the 1984 contest.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory:
  • Reports indicate that for 2013, Azerbaijan did just that, literally. It appears to have backfired, since they only managed to get 2nd place.
  • Downplayed with the "Big 5" countries ^note (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and United Kingdom) who are the highest financial contributors to the EBU: them and the host country (the one spending a boatload of money to make the contest possible) get to automatically qualify for the final, regardless of previous results. These countries haven't really used this to their advantage in the final however, with Germany in 2010 and Italy in 2021 being the only times someone from the "Big 5" has won, with these countries being known for having a tendency for not taking the contest seriously, and in the case of the host, fear of having to pay to host the contest again. Not to mention, even when these nations do send credible songs, some argue that the bye is more of a disadvantage, as said artists have to wait until the final for their songs to be performed, thus having less exposure compared to the semi-finalists as a result. It is for this reason, as well as the reintroduction of juries, that led Turkey to withdraw from the contest in 2013.
  • San Marino attempted to do this by hiring a ringer for the 2021 contest, specifically Flo Rida who featured on their entry. It didn't work; they came 22nd out of 26 (and Flo Rida looked downright miserable in the green room as the results were read, to boot.)
• The Bus Came Back: Many countries temporarily withdrew and then came back after one or a few years. However, there are some notable examples of countries that returned after more than one decade of absence:
  • Malta had its first three participations in 1971, 1972 (ending up in the last place both times) and once more in 1975. After a 16-year absence, they returned in 1991 and have participated every year since.
  • Monaco participated for two decades from 1959 to 1979. After a 25-year absence, they returned in 2004 only to fail to qualify to the final for three years in a row and withdraw again in 2006.
  • Slovakia debuted in 1994 but withdrew in 1999 due to poor results. After a 10-year absence, they returned in 2009 only to fail to qualify to the final for four years in a row and withdraw again in 2012.
  • Italy participated in the contest since the beginning in 1956, until they started to miss sporadic editions in the 80s and 90s, and then withdrew entirely after 1997 (which they only entered because the broadcaster forgot to withdraw that year). After a 14-year absence, they returned in 2011 and have participated every year following.
  • Luxembourg participated in the contest for 37 years since the 1956 debut. After being relegated from the 1994 contest for scoring poorly in 1993, Luxembourg withdrew from the contest entirely. In 2023 it was announced that they would finally return in 2024, after a 31-year absence.
• Catchphrase: Douze points! Twelve points goes to... (SIC) Royaume Uni dix points!
• Cheaters Never Prosper: During the second semifinal in 2022, the juries for Azerbaijan, Georgia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, and San Marino were all disqualified and had a substitute jury vote created for them, based on the (legitimate) jury votes from the other countries in their pot in the allocation draw. According to one of Belgium's broadcasters, they had made agreements to vote for one another.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The individual members of Iceland's 2014 entry, Pollapönk. Whether in tracksuits◊, suit and tie◊, dresses◊, or bathrobes, they would wear the same colors. They even painted their [finger]nails for you!
• Confetti Drop: A massive confetti drop usually happens during the winner's Triumphant Reprise. Confetti isn't allowed during the main show as there isn't enough time to clear it up between performances.
• Curse: While nations performing later in the contest tends to have a better chance of winning, as most viewers remember the song more when it's time to vote, a nation having to perform 2nd in the final running order is known to be a kiss of death to one's chances of winning the contest. Not only that nobody has won performing there, it has produced the most last place finishes and many pre-contest favorites have found themselves bombing in the scorecard from having to perform 2nd. Notable victims to the curse include Vicky Leandros (1967), Ronnie Tober (1968) ^note He finished joint last , Olivia Newton-John (1974), Matia Bazaar (1979), Gili & Galit (1989) and Gina G (1996). The producers, who have decided the running order since 2013, usually put a song with little chance of winning — usually a simple ballad which fares poorly — in this slot, after opening with an upbeat song. In 2024, Ukraine managed to defy the perceived bad luck by reaching third place in the results after performing second.

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• Dark Horse Victory: A decent number of entries have surpassed expectations and snatched victory away from the act considered the favorite to win. This is especially common if the frontrunner's performance in the grand final ends up being underwhelming. The introduction of the split voting system has led to some dramatic examples of this where a contestant who tops the leaderboard suddenly gets overtaken by an act that scored higher with the public than the juries. Particularly notable examples include Finland in 2006 (Lordi who were largely treated as a joke entry by actual Finns, only for their performance to win everyone's hearts and become the first rock act to win the contest altogether) and Serbia in 2007 (their act, Marija Serifovic, was completely devoid of any of the theatricality that would've been successful in the contest, but nonetheless won thanks to a surprisingly heartfelt performance coupled with heavy lesbian subtext).
• Decon-Recon Switch: The language(s) of each participating song. From 1956 until 1965, there was no restriction of the language(s) in the selected songs, but since Sweden's Ingvar Wixell sang his song in English in the 1965 contest, a rule was imposed that a song must be performed in each country's own official languages. This rule was later lifted in 1973, which participants were allowed to enter songs in any language. Several participants took advantage of this, with songs in English by non-English speaking countries. Due to the heavy favor of English, in 1977, the contest organiser reimposed the national language restriction again, until The '90s when Ireland created the streak of three wins due to being one of the only three countries which were allowed to sing in English, then a free choice of language was allowed again since 1999, but this can lead to an accusation of the monotonous trend of the songs in English again during The New '10s, until Salvador Sobral won the 2017 contest with entirely Portuguese song "Amar pelos dois", which sparked a small wave of some countries use their own native languages in the songs since then.
• Department of Redundancy Department: Finland's 1998 entry "Aava" contained the fewest different words of any Eurovision entry (only six distictive words are displayed repetitively through the song).
• Denser and Wackier:
  • How the contest has changed over time. In the early years, especially those filmed in black and white, it was presented as more classy and serious. Gradually throughout the rest of the 20th century, more humorous, satirical, or otherwise unusual entries and performances would crop up, but in the early 2000s the norm became campy, over-the-top, and often entertainingly trashy, reaching its peak in 2008, and cementing its status as "the gay non-sport Olympics".
  • The 2020s' have been noted as including a lot more gimmicky entries, themes and lyrics that are a lot more out-there, and others that aim to be more unique compared to what was usually seen during the final years of the 2010s, or the 2010s as a whole. Although even the 2010s have some occasional wacky moments, especially 2012, which featured very weird acts by Russia, San Marino, Montenegro, and Austria in the same semifinal (although only Russia qualified to the final), and Israel's unconventional song even won the contest in 2018.
  • San Marino's role in the contest as a whole. Their first two participations in 2008 and 2011 are perfectly normal and serious songs, which simply didn't qualify to the final. Ever since 2012, most of San Marino's entries have become a meme among Eurovision fans, for better or for worse, and there's a running joke that San Marino is deliberately trolling Eurovision because they know they can't win, being a microstate.
• Determinator:
  • Claudia Faniello was selected to represent Malta in 2017 — on her ninth attempt. Unfortunately, she was eliminated after finishing third-to-last in the semi-finals with no televote points, while being 8th in the jury vote.
  • Samanta Tina would also finally get to perform in the Contest on her ninth attempt — having tried to represent Lithuania twice and Latvia six times before getting her chance in 2021. She was due to compete for Latvia in 2020 until the COVID-19 pandemic caused it to be cancelled. LTV would send her again in 2021, but she finished bottom of her semifinal. Time will tell if she decides to make a tenth attempt.
• Discretion Shot: Between each song (to give the TV audience something to look at while the set is being changed), the next act is prefaced with a brief onscreen presentation, referred to as a "postcard". (Whilst an integral part of the contest nowadays, they wore introduced in 1970 to pad the show out — the previous year's four-way tie caused four countries to withdraw.) Usually it shows montages of either the artists or sights from the host country. Recent examples have included;
  • Belgrade 2008: Performers dancing in the colours of the country's flag, whilst a short letter is written in the country's language — except for Belgium (written in the same constructed language as its song) and Serbia (which was "Welcome to Belgrade" or "Welcome to Serbia" in various languages).
  • Moscow 2009: Ksenia Sukhinova, 2008 Miss World, wearing a hat containing miniature images of famous sights of the country, with her dress patterned after its flag's colours. It finished with a word or phrase in Russian — transliterated into the Latin alphabet — and its English meaning.
  • Oslo 2010: The "spheres of moments" form a map of the next act's country, then summon a screen showing a flash mob cheering on their performer walking onto the stage, and then transform into the national flag.
  • Düsseldorf 2011: Expatriates from the performing act's home country engaging in their profession in Germany, ending with them uttering the edition slogan "Feel Your Heart Beat!" in their national language.
  • Baku 2012: A montage of various sights in Azerbaijan, ending with the LED array of the exterior of Baku Crystal Hall lighting up in the country's colours.
  • Malmö 2013: The artists preparing for their trip from their home country, ending with a butterfly bearing the pattern of the country's flag flying off to Malmö.
  • Copenhagen 2014: The artists using different media (such as paint, jigsaw puzzle pieces or even flowers) to make up their country's flag, before taking a photograph of the result.
  • Vienna 2015: The artists receiving boxes containing items which serve as "clues" to their activities in Austria, ending with both the artists and the inviting party waving from a billboard somewhere in Vienna.
  • Stockholm 2016: A close-up of the artist/s, followed with a montage of him/her/them engaging in various activities along with family, friends and/or each other (if in groups) as stylized names of their countries are displayed and dandelions in their national colours fly.
  • Kyiv 2017: Starts with the acts doing the Mannequin Challenge in a tunnel followed by “flashbacks” of the singers being themselves and preparing for the contest in their host country^note Except for Francesco Gabbani from Italy. His postcard was quite bizarre., ending with the artists proceeding to walk on stage.
  • Lisbon 2018: The artist/s going to various locales across Portugal and engaging in various local activities, ending with him/her/them posting a selfie with the edition's official hashtag "#allaboard" displayed onscreen, followed with a display of the name of the country, song and other data amidst a background of underwater plants displaying the colours of the competing nation.
  • Tel Aviv 2019: The artist/s, walking around various locales in Israel, pressing an imaginary play button (a wireframe triangle made of light), leading him/her/them into a dance-off with local dancers, before casting another triangle onto the screen and into the arena, where it joins an array of triangles hovering over the stage forming the flag of the participating nation. Many acts posted from their postcard filming when recording.
  • Rotterdam 2020: Would have followed the same theme as the previous two, but based around the ordinary people that the contestants mingle with. Spain, whose act — selected as far back as the previous October — would get immediate first refusal following the show's annulment, had filmed a postcard, but other acts cancelling their shoots due to the escalating crisis, and laws their nations sometimes imposed as regards this, made it untenable.
    • Rotterdam 2021: Unlike the presenters, draw and staging, the postcards were to be changed slightly from the 2020 contest, as the acts will would be shown beamed into a house virtually from their home country, to prevent the problems that made the previous contest untenable from repeating, though the concept of involving the local community in some way does remain. This updated concept was revealed in December 2020. It involved the virtual house filling up with the act's possessions and videos of them, the act appearing briefly, and than a ray of light striking the house and splitting into flag colours.
  • Torino 2022: To tie in with the slogan of "The Sound of Beauty", a drone flew over picturesque areas of Italy with pictures of the performers, who then appeared on a building or similar via chrome keying.
  • Liverpool 2023: The postcards would start with a landmark in Ukraine, then the United Kingdom and finishing up with a landmark in the country about to perform — all three being linked to one another, like town halls or cathedrals — with the performer taking part in an activity of their choice.
  • Malmö 2024: Each postcard opened with a clip of two of the countries' previous entries to the Contest, followed by a brief selfie-style clip of this year's entry in their home country, and ending with a slow-motion shot of the artist(s) as their name appears. The postcard style was parodied during the grand final with an extra one for three-time host Petra Mede whose "home" footage showed her doing things like spilling sauce on her shirt or having her card rejected by an ATM.
• Dramatic Wind: Wind machines are a popular staging choice, especially for female singers with long hair that can fan out dramatically around them.
• Eiffel Tower Effect: During the results portion of the show the spokesperson for each country is shown in front of a projection of a location which often includes a famous landmark. France's backdrop is usually the Eiffel Tower.
• Eliminated from the Race: Every year since the introduction of the semi-finals in 2004, the countries in the lowest places won't make the final.
• Epileptic Flashing Lights: These often appear as part of the staging, especially for rock bands. Warnings are often issued before particularly intense examples for the safety of viewers who may have issues with strobing.
• Europop: Although depending on who you ask and the song in question, it's more of an example of how weird Europop can get.
• Everything's Better with Sparkles: Germany's 2000 and 2009 entries had sparkling outfits, Lithuania's 2010 and 2022 entry features sparkling shorts and sparkling dress respectively, Belgium's 2016 entry had a sparkly jacket, and Australia's 2022 entry also had a beady sparkly mask. The 2021 contest in Rotterdam had no less than six acts in silver sparkling outfits^note Malta's Destiny Chukunyere, Croatia's Albina Grčić, Cyprus's Elena Tsagrinou, Albania's Anxhela Peristeri, Moldova's Natalia Gordienco, and Norway's TIX. Ukraine's 2007 entry (Verka Serduchka) cranks this up to eleven.
• Every Year They Fizzle Out: The common feeling in Spain, where a ton of hype is built upon the election of that year's entrant, boosted by a large online contingent... only to come back down to earth with a bump when the votes are counted. Neither Edurne in 2015 nor Barei in 2016 got into the top 20 — and who knows if either of them would have even made it past the semi-finals if Spain wasn't in the "Big Five". In 2017, Manel Navarro came dead last, with only 5 points from the televote (all from Portugal) and none from the juries, despite performing the song in other countries' selection shows, duetting with Lucie, and with a singer from a neighbouring country whose fortunes were rather different to his, as well as covering his fave ESC 2017 songs and covers of chart songs, such as one of Ed Sheeran endorsed by Ed himself. In 2018, this was even worse, as Operación Triunfo, responsible for their relatively successful 2002-04 entries, was brought back, and Catalan singer Alfred and Navarrese Amaia were the most followed singers on Instagram, each with more followers than any other act at the start of selection, and were dating in real life to boot, but performed 2nd and placed 23rd. In 2019, despite having a popular entry, its poor jury vote led to a 5th placing below 20th in a row. The following 2 years, in the hands of ex-boyband singer Blas Canto, they again failed to convince, being faves for last place when the 2020 contest was cancelled, and getting just 5 jury votes, and NO Televotes, in 2021, when he was given first refusal immediately after the 2020 one was canned. It doesn't help that the 2008 entrant, Rodolfo Chikilicuatre, was a "joke" entry that nobody in Spain actually expected to win, yet he still got a better ranking than many of the "serious" entries sent during the last 15 years.
  • The Spanish actually managed to finish 3rd in 2022 (their best performance since finishing second in 1995) with a Jennifer Lopez-esque number courtesy of Chanel after deciding to reboot their selection process, so perhaps things are looking up for them in terms of the Eurovision. 2023 however saw Spain take a massive drop with Blanca Paloma, who scored favorably with the jury, but only received 5 points from the televote, placing 17th.
• Failure Hero:
  • The country that has participated the longest without any win is Portugal, which made its debut in 1964 and never finished in the top five... until 2017, when it finally won for the first time ever — the same day Francisco and Jacinta Marto, the two little shepherds from Fátima were canonized (the Pope even came to Portugal) and Benfica won their first tetra (i.e. four consecutive national football championships). It's like the stars just lined up!
  • As of 2024, Malta is the country which has debuted the longest time ago without ever winning: 53 years since their debut in 1971 (although there was a considerable gap, leaving in 1975 and not returning until 1991), the same amount of time it took Portugal to bag their first win.
  • If we consider effective contest appearances without a win, Cyprus has participated the highest number of times (39) without ever taking home the trophy, though they rose from an 80-1 outsider to narrowly lose to near-neighbour Israel in 2018. Portugal still holds the record in this category, too (48 participations resulting in failure before their first win).
• Fanservice: While actual nudity is against the rules due to broadcasting regulations, performers of all genders regularly opt for revealing costumes or Nude-Colored Clothes, especially if their act involves a lot of energetic dancing. 2016's interval act "Love, Love, Peace, Peace" even lampshaded this by pointing out how often "gorgeous topless men" appear as backing dancers or band members.
• Flipping the Bird: Both Germany and Finland had songs in 2021 regarding this, though Blind Channel from Finland were asked not to flip whilst Germany's Jendrik literally had a lady dressed as a hand one arm away from flipping the audience. What made matters more hilarious about this is that both countries ended up performing back-to-back in the grand final.
• Foregone Conclusion: This is often caused the end of the voting to feel anti-climactic. Around the halfway point, the country that's in the lead would have a pretty sizeable lead over the country in second place, and that difference would stay until there are about three to six countries left. The hosts would then announce that the country officially couldn't be dethroned, making the remaining announcements feel superfluous. There are some exceptions where the top countries had a pretty small gap between them, such as in 2003 and 2011, but those years are rare. Starting with the split between the Jury vote and the Public vote in 2016, the voting got a lot more tense as after the Jury votes had been counted in the traditional Eurovision way, the Public vote could change the current ranking altogether.
• Foreign Remake: There have been several attempts at replicating the "music competition between countries/territories, where each territory sends one act" format in other regions, though they have been largely unable to match the success of the European original.
  • In 2005, German comedian, musician and Eurovision veteran Stefan Raab started the "Bundesvision (Federal Vision) Song Contest" featuring contestants representing the 16 German states. So far, all winners were already very big in Germany. It lasted for 11 editions until 2015.
  • The Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union has held its own ABU Song Festivals, with both a version delegated by television broadcasters, and a separate event delegated by radio broadcasters. Unlike Eurovision, these were more of an exhibition rather than an actual competition. Expanding upon the involvement of Australia's SBS in the actual Eurovision, it was announced in 2017 that there would be a Eurovision Asia Song Contest beginning in 2018, but after years of Schedule Slip it was quietly cancelled by SBS in 2021.
  • In 2022, the American Song Contest, comprising of all the states, territories and the District of Columbia competing against each other, was launched. It only lasted for one edition, hosted by Kelly Clarkson and Snoop Dogg, before getting cancelled.
  • Also in 2022, versions for both Canada and Latin America were announced, though as of 2024 no further developments are known.
• Foreign Language Title: Some entries, while not really bilingual songs, include a repeated word or two in a foreign language which becomes the title (like Cyprus 2018 "Fuego", or Serbia 2020 "Hasta la vista", Spanish-language titles in an English and Serbian song respectively). Others, like Belarus 2017 "Story of My Life", have the original title translated into English but the song remaining otherwise untouched.
• Forgotten Theme Tune Lyrics: The 1968 winning song used to have lyrics, but they were censored.^note The original singer, Joan Manuel Serrat, wanted to sing part of the song in Catalonian (one of the languages spoken in Spain). The Franco Regime opposed to this, so they switched the singer, and changed the part in Catalonian. The chorus ended up being: "la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la."
• Funny Background Event:
  • This. Daniel Diges had to sing his song again. Hilarity Ensues when the second guy came in for the duet and people watching thought it was Jimmy Jump again.
  • The dancer in pink that keeps purposely doing the wrong moves and falls down towards the middle of the song.
  • Jamala had a Ukrainian streaker in her performance during the interval of 2017's contest. ^note However, the fact that he was wearing an Australian flag as a cape, and Isaiah Firebrace subsequently only got 5 televotes, is probably not a coincidence.
  • SuRie from United Kingdom in the 2018 Contest had a stage invader who grabbed her microphone and shouted ”All of the Nazis of the UK media. We demand freedom. War is not peace!” in her performance. There was fears that Israel in all its divisiveness hosting 2019 ESC would lead to more of this happening. It did (briefly) when Netta performed in the French selection, and a couple of boycott activists with banners ran onto the stage but they were removed, and no other incidents like this occurred, even though most selections, and the show itself from within TA, had controlled protests outside from such activists.
• Fun with Acronyms: The band behind Switzerland's 2013 entry, Heilsarmee (Salvation Army, since its performers are members of said charity) were forced to change their name because of the "no politics" rule. They re-named themselves Takasa, which pretty much stands for "The artists (formally) known as Salvation Army"
• Getting Crap Past the Radar:
  • Cursing is not allowed. Naturally, the occasional one slips out (for example, one of the hosts in 2001 had a notable one when it looked like he broke the trophy), but it's usually avoided. Most recently, one of the backing dancers for the Dutch entry in 2018 seemed to be clearly screaming "Fuck yeah!" to the camera when they finally qualified, the same happened in 2021 with Hooverphonic's guitarist Raymond Geerts who also let out an audible "fuck yeah!" when Belgium was announced as a qualifier.
    • In 2022, the Latvian act Citi Zēni had a particularly raunchy opening line to their entry "Eat Your Salad", which is "Instead of meat, I eat veggies and pussy". They were, of course, not allowed to sing that line on air come Eurovision, letting the audience yell the banned word in where it would be sung normally. The following year, Serbian representative Luke Black would do the same during his song "Samo mi se spava", where he held the microphone to the audience and they yelled the word "bitch" at the end of the line "game over, bitch", which was more of a Call-Back to his Madrid pre-Eurovision-party performance, where he did end up using that word in the song.
  • Speaking of 2021, the year featured two notable incidents back to back in the final: Germany's song featured references to "wiggling middle fingers" and had a giant peace sign onstage — with an arm in the index finger that she frequently put down; making a middle finger; Finland, immediately after, referred to "put your middle fingers up" and painted their middle fingers red.
  • Sweden's 1972 song "You're Summer" is notorious for the somewhat odd simile "your breasts are like swallows a-nestling". If that wasn't racy enough, the original Swedish version (written by poet Lars Forssell) is also a double entendre: "dina bröst är som svalor som häckar" can be read as "your breasts are like swallows like butts".
• Golden Snitch:
  • Has been known to happen in the national selections, notably the Ukrainian entry in 2005. Having played out the preselection over the course of 15 knockout rounds, the broadcaster bizarrely added Razom nas bahato, an anthem of the previous year's Orange Revolution, as a "wildcard" entry in the final. It won the vote (and promptly had to be rewritten to remove the political content, in accordance with Eurovision rules).
  • The Maltese national final for 2013 had televoting giving one to twelve points, and six juries... each of which gave up to twelve points, so the power of televote was drastically reduced. Romania had similar problems leading to a controversial choice of entry in 2019. In Albania’s Kenges Festival, which predates their participation in the contest by decades, a jury also has a major effect.
• Graceful Loser: It's not uncommon for the artists who come last to applaud their results. In 2021, the James Newman and Jendrik Sigwart outright cheered when their zero points televote scores were announced.
• Gratuitous English: Many acts.
  • The French entries have always been in French, except for the 1996 and 2022 entries (both in Breton) and the 2011 entry (in Corsican, which was also one of the languages of the 1993 entry), although the entries in 2008^note "Divine" by Sébastien Tellier, 2016^note "J'ai cherché" by Amir, 2017^note "Requiem" by Alma as well as the one for the cancelled 2020^note "Mon alliée (The Best in Me)" by Tom Leeb edition were sung in French and English. And the 2007 entry from France was in Franglais, a creole-like mix of the two languages (which was strange and disorienting to audiences on both sides of the Channel).
  • The Spaniards have not sung in English, with just five exceptions: in 1968 — in which Spain won the contest — when, during the reprise of "La, La, La", Massiel sang the second chorus in English; in 2014, Ruth Lorenzo sang the bilingual Spanish and English "Dancing in the Rain;" in 2016, Barei was the first Spanish entrant to perform a song fully in English; Manel Navarro in 2017 sang "Do It for Your Lover" in bilingual form, and in 2022 Chanel sang the bilingual "Slo Mo". Each time that English has been featured in Spain's entry, the Real Academia Española (the Royal Spanish Academy) has voiced its public objection.
  • The Portuguese lasted longer than the French in staying in their native tongue. Their entry in 2003, "Deixa-me sonhar (só mais uma vez)", was the first of four entries to be sung partially in English; every other Portuguese entry (save for three or so, which still only used minimal English) has only been presented in Portuguese, until 2021 when they sent for the first time a fully English song ("Love Is on My Side" by The Black Mamba). In 2022, Portugal song is in both languages.
  • Israel lasted a long time before sending an entry entirely in English. While several entries only included minimal Hebrew, there were at least a few English phrases in most of the Israeli songs from about 1992 onward. Their first entry entirely in English was "Golden Boy" in 2015, which compensated for the lack of Hebrew by referencing the city of Tel Aviv and performing with a very Middle Eastern sound. This ultimately worked — Israel finished 9th, their entries in 2016 and 2017 both qualified, and 2018 (which included exactly one line in Hebrew) brought them their fourth victory.
  • On the flip side, Belarus have only sent one entry in their native language (which still was presented with an English title, "Story of My Life"), though would have had another — referred to by its own language title but a complete outsider — if 2020 was not cancelled, and Azerbaijan have sent zero. In fact, when the Bulgarian act in 2012 included a few phrases in Azerbaijani in her multi-lingual song, it was the first and only time the language appeared at Eurovision. And the contest was in Azerbaijan that year! (For what it's worth, Bulgaria didn't qualify and the English-language Azeri song finished in fourth place.)
• Guest Fighter: The contest has no rules or restrictions on the nationalities of a performing country’s performers or songwriters (if there are any, it is at the discretion of the participating national broadcaster), so it’s not rare to see a country send a foreigner.
  • The most notable example, Céline Dion, represented Switzerland in Dublin 1988 and won (over the UK by a single point) despite hailing from Quebec, Canada.
  • In 1995, Norway won with Secret Garden, whose violinist Fionnuala Sherry came from Ireland.
  • While UK's 1997 winners Katrina and the Waves were formed in Cambridge, vocalist Katrina Leskanich was born and raised in Kansas. While some Britons might have been unamused that Katrina is American in origin, considering the UK's history of second-place finishes and uneventful results since (and three last-place finishes, including no points at all in Riga 2003), they'll take what they can get.
  • Adding to Eurovision's popularity in Australia was the fact that they sent three artists—Olivia Newton-John (Brighton 1974) and Gina G (Oslo 1996), both for the UK, as well as Johnny Logan, who won for Ireland thrice (as singer in The Hague 1980 and Brussels 1987, as well as songwriter in Malmö 1992).
  • Greece's Helena Paparizou, winner of Kyiv 2005, is of Greek ethnicity but born and raised in Sweden. She even finished fourth at the 2014 edition of Melodifestivalen, Sweden's national selection show.
  • As well as Celine Dion, Switzerland had performers from other countries representing them in the mid-2000s: Estonian girl group Vanilla Ninja in 2005, and All4One in 2006, which had members from Sweden, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Malta, Germany and Israel (as well as Switzerland).
  • 2009 winner Alexander Rybak was born in Belarus, but moved to Norway at the age of 4. He has gained and maintained popularity in Eastern Europe, which was exemplified when even their infamously partisan voting bloc gave Norway high marks. Besides Rybak, the next three highest-placing entrants are also foreign-born: Iceland's Jóhanna "Yohanna" Guðrún Jónsdóttir was born in Denmark, one of Azerbaijan's two singers—Arash Labaf—is Iranian-Swedish, and Turkey's Hadise Açıkgöz was born and broke through in Belgium. That year also saw an American, Oscar Loya, sing for Germany, and Ukrainian-born Anastasia Prikhodko sing for Russia, whilst Mira Awad became Israel's first entrant from its Arab community (20% of its population).
  • While 2011 winners Ell and Nikki (Eldar Gasimov and Nikki Jamal) are Azerbaijanis (though Jamal presently lives in London), both their backup singers and songwriters are either British or Swedish. The backing singers in particular entered the Melodifestivalen of that year before switching to Ell and Nikki when things didn't work out.
  • San Marino, being a micro-nation, is forced to rely on guest fighters. Perennial Eurovision songwriter Ralph Siegel from Germany has written and composed 5 out of 6 of San Marino's entries between 2012 through 2017. Serial performer Valentina Monetta, whom if she won, would make history in its sleep, recruited American Jimmie Wilson in 2017. The only time San Marino did not recruit Siegel within that period (2016), the singer was from Turkey with Turkish and Greek writers. For 2018, their selection process involved applications from everywhere, almost literally (including Argentina, Philippines and Zimbabwe), with a single local musician from a pool of 7 as well leading to a final of 12 acts singing songs written by Austria's francophone 2016 act, but usually in English or Italian. Malta and Germany were the home countries of the 2 winners. Their 2016 entrant returns for 2019 with a self written tune. And in 2021, they brought Flo Rida. Neighboring Italy has also provided talent in 2008, 2011, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. 2024 saw artists, who came short in the respective qualifiers of Spain and San Marino the previous year, switch places and be picked.
  • Albania's 2012 fifth-placer Rona Nishliu hails from Kosovo, but its recognition issues currently prevents it from participating in the contest, so it is not uncommon and justifiable for Kosovars to be represented by Albania in international events. The same happened in 2017 with Lindita Halimi and in 2023 with Albina Kelmendi. Neither Azerbaijan — despite the common cultural Muslim religion — or Ukraine recognises Kosovo, and Ukraine's football team hosted Kosovo in Poland rather than Ukraine itself the previous autumn, although both have normal and strong relations with Albania.
  • Armenia's Genealogy (16th place, Vienna 2015) is essentially a Multinational Team, representing the worldwide Armenian diaspora: Inga Arshakyan (Armenia), Mary-Jean O'Doherty Basmadjian (Australia), Vahe Tilbian (Ethiopia), Essaï Altounian (France), Stephanie Topalian (Japan) and Tamar Kaprelian (USA).
  • The major trend of the 2010s have seen a proliferation of various national broadcasters outsourcing song composition to Swedish songwriters (e.g. every Azerbaijani entry since 2009).
  • Monaco's tiny population — about 38,400 in 2016 — means that most of their performers came from neighbouring France.
  • The majority of Luxembourg's participants (all but nine) come from outside Luxembourg itself. This includes their five winners (four from France, one from Greece), and a great deal of them weren't even from French-speaking countries (competitors have hailed from Germany, the UK, the USA, Spain, the Netherlands, and Ireland, among other places, as well as partially-French Belgium).
  • The 2018 contest saw a handful of artists representing countries other than their place of birth: the aforementioned Jessika and Jenifer (respectively Maltese and German) for San Marino; two-fifths of the Bulgarian act coming from the US; Albanian emigrants for both Italy and Cyprus (to top it off, Eleni Foureira lives in Greece and has Greek, not Cypriot, citizenship); a Brazilian singer of Latvian and Italian descent for Latvia; Swedish Lukas Meijer lending vocals to Poland's act; the Belarus-born Alexander Rybak again for Norway and Alekseev (Ukrainian) for Belarus.
  • Canadian singers represented Greece and Romania in 2019. The latter beat an American and a Filipino in a controversial selection process.
  • 2020 would have seen a Greek of Armenian descent for Armenia, a Dutch woman of Greek descent for Greece, and a Suriname-born Dutch singer, in a unique chain, as well as singers of Filipino lineage from Austria and Australia, and a Slovenian for Germany, amongst many others in what would have been one of the most diverse song contests ever. Many of the acts are to return in 2021.
  • In 2022 although no one was entirely sure who were underneath the masks, the fact that one of the Norwegian duo Subwoolfer spoke with a British accent led to much speculation across both sides of the North Sea as to just who he actually was. (The favourite guess was that it was A1 singer Ben Adams, which was proven in the Norwegian national final in 2023).
  • In Vienna 2015, Australia itself was allowed to participate in honor of both the 60th anniversary of the contest and to reward its loyalty, with their performer Guy Sebastian finishing in fifth-place. Since then, they have been invited to compete ever since, including a respectable 2nd place in 2016.

H-R

• Handicapped Badass:
  • Blind singer and pianist Serafín Zubiri represented Spain twice (1992 and 2000).
  • 2015 gave us both Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät, a Finnish punk rock band made up of men with intellectual disabilities^note Sadly, they ended up last place in their semi-final and Monika Kuszyńska from Poland, who performed a wonderfully moving and heartwarming song, in a wheelchair.
  • Julia Samoylova from Russia, finally allowed to compete in 2018.
  • In the 2019 selection process, the host nation had an act called Shalva consisting of 8 members from a Jewish disability charity, who were expected to win and represent Israel, but dropped out before the final, due to their religious devotion (whilst the Shabbat finishes in Israel before the ESC starts, rehearsals take place on the Friday night and Saturday morning, when the holy day occurs), and the fact they are larger than the limit for people on stage (6 members). However, they decided to perform as an interval act in the heats instead, which are in a midweek and don't limit the number of people on stage at any time.
• Homoerotic Subtext: While the Ho Yay moments are many (see the YMMV page for some examples), just as many are the intentional cases alluding to (or straight-up referencing) homosexual attraction:
  • In terms of subtext and allusion, Cannes 1961 winner "Nous les amoureux" by Jean-Claude Pascal for Luxembourg takes the proverbial cake. At first glance, the lyrics could refer to any relationship facing judgment or discrimination by society at the time, and the subjects are not gendered.^note Which is no easy feat in French, mind you. It wasn't until decades later that Pascal confirmed the song was about a homosexual relationship, and that this was his own experience.
  • The winning song of Helsinki 2007, "Molitva" by Serbian singer Marija Šerifović, has lots of close contact among the all-female ensemble, and it concludes with them revealing red hearts drawn on their held hands. Šerifović herself would come out as WLW in 2014.
  • Finland's performance in 2013 was ended beautifully with a sapphic kiss between Krista Siegfrids and one of the backing vocalists.
  • Norway's Subwoolfer (10th, Turin 2022) and their song "Give That Wolf a Banana" have their entry filed under Ho Yay, but this is exaggerated by a Valentine's Day version of their song named "Give That Wolf a Romantic Banana" with a picture of them kiss each other on the thumbnail.
• Impossibly Tacky Clothes: An award for the funniest costume, the Barbara Dex Award, ran from 1997 to 2021. It's named after Belgian singer Barbara Dex, who sewed her own dress for the 1993 contest. However, in March 2022, it was announced the award would be redesigned and renamed, as it made acts vulnerable to hatedoms and degradation, even though Dex herself was not offended by the prize.
• Inopportune Voice Cracking: Manel Navarro's performance for Spain in 2017 is best remembered for his squawk towards the end of the song. Combined with the fact that he wasn't a heavy favorite thanks to a somewhat bland song and a massively controversial national selection, it didn't really come as a surprise when he finished last.
• Long-Runners
  • German composer Ralph Siegel wrote a whopping 22 songs, ranging from "Ein bißchen Frieden", West Germany's winning song for Harrogate 1982, to San Marino's entries in 2012-15 and 2017, 4 of which were sang by Valentina Monetta (2017 in a duet with an American singer).
  • After taking place every year since 1956, in 2020 the Song Contest had to be cancelled for the first time in 65 years amidst growing concerns (and quarantines) in regards to the spread of COVID-19. It returned in 2021, in Rotterdam as originally planned, with several scenarios to ensure it happened to ensure 2020's cancellation would be a one off.
• Lyrical Dissonance:
  • Most notably "Waterloo", an upbeat song comparing the narrator's relationship to the Battle of Waterloo.
  • "Mercy" (France 2018) is a happy-sounding song about the children who die crossing the Mediterranean while fleeing with their families (but it might be justified in that it is from the perspective of a newborn baby).
    Je suis tous ces enfants
    Que la mer a pris.^note I'm all the children taken by the sea.
  • "Fairytale" (the winner of the 2009 contest, from Norway) is about being in love with an unachievable person. Cheerfully so, with hallingdans dance moves.
    I'm in love with a fairy tale
    Even though it hurts
    'Cause I don't care if I lose my mind
    I'm already cursed
  • "Viszlát Nyár" also fall in this category, the song has a pretty intense and energetic Post-Hardcore sound despite the lyrics being the last words of the singer's deceased father.
    Játsszunk nyílt lapokkal végre
    A hajómnak mennie kell
    És itt fog hagyni téged
  • "Shum" (Ukraine 2021) is a high-energy techno song about a spring summoning ritual and sowing hemp seeds. Immediately after a beat drop and a tempo rise:
    Весняночко, весняночко^note The spring song, the spring song
    Де ти зимувала?^note Where have you spent the winter?
    У садочку на кленочку^note In a little garden on a maple tree
    Сорочечку пряла^note I've woven my shirt
    https://lyricstranslate.com
• Minor Flaw, Major Breakup: The 2014 Belarus entry was about a guy who dumped his girlfriend... because she affectionately called him "sweet cheesecake".
• The Movie: Will Ferrell's Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, which he co-wrote and starred in after being a fan of the competition for decades. Junior Eurovision also had documentary made about it, titled Sounds Like Teen Spirit: A Popumentary.
• My Country Tis of Thee That I Sting: The opening act of the second semi final of the 2022 contest was one of the hosts making fun of Italian stereotypes.
• My Greatest Second Chance: Dima Bilan finished second to Finland's Lordi in 2006. Two years later, he went one better and gave Russia its first Eurovision victory.
• Not Staying for Breakfast:
  • Basically the subject of Estonia’s entry in 2015, though it's framed as the fall-out of a fight in an established couple and not a hook-up.
  • Inverted with "The Wrong Place" by Hooverphonic, Belgium's 2021 entry: the hook-up insisting on staying is what makes the narrator realise she had made a mistake in leading him up.
• Overly Long Gag: Mr. Lordi returned to present Finland's votes on the 2012 edition. And then this happened.
• Poe's Law: Dustin the Turkey, singing a deliberately terrible dance song about how terrible Eurovision has gotten and how Ireland have gone from being the group-to-beat to being also-rans. It might have gone over a little better if the lyrics had been a little more coherent and had Dustin had a less annoying voice. Most people thought it was simply a shit song — as many commentators only half-jokingly noted, it's not like Dustin was significantly worse than a lot of actual Eurovision performances.
• Pimped-Out Dress: Eye-catching and elaborate costumes are a popular choice for those performing uptempo songs. Artists performing ballads tend go the Simple, yet Opulent route with tasteful eveningwear.
• Precision F-Strike:
  • Italy's 2021 entry — "Zitti e buoni", by Måneskin — originally included the lyrics "vi conviene toccarvi i coglioni" (you better grab your balls — an Italian phrase roughly equivalent to "you better touch wood") and "non sa di che cazzo parla" (they don't know what the fuck they're talking about), which got changed respectively to "vi conviene non fare più errori" (you better stop making mistakes) and "non sa di che cosa parla" (they don't know what they're talking about) to comply with Eurovision's rules on profanity. However, after securing their win, singer Damiano David dropped the filter and sang the original lyric during their encore.
  • Singers have to censor any swear words when performing, but that doesn't stop the audience from shouting them. This notably occurs during Latvia 2022 and Serbia 2023 with the words "pussy" and "bitch", respectively.
  • However, Italy's 2023 entry contained the lyrics "E ci siamo fottuti ancora una notte", which means "we messed up" or "we screwed up one more night" (the official translation of Eurovision websites), but "ci siamo fottuti" can also mean "we fucked" in another context.
• Really 17 Years Old: Belgium in 1986 sent Sandra Kim, at the tender age of 13.5 years old. She pretended to be 14 and, as a result, became the youngest winner.^note Starting from 1990 a rule was implemented stating that contestants have to be at least 16 on the day of their first live performance, ensuring that Kim remains the youngest ever winner as long as the rule remains in place — which is very likely, since nowadays performers in Kim's then-age range participate in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest.
• Rearrange the Song: Songs entered into the contest must be no longer than three minutes. Many artists have had to edit longer songs down, usually by cutting instrumental sections as live instruments are no longer allowed during the contest for technical reasons. Other performers may choose to rework their songs for artistic reasons between selection and competing.
• Refuge in Audacity: Some acts become popular because they're so ridiculously over the top it's hard not to enjoy them. The champions of this have to be German act Dschinghis Khan singing a song about Genghis Khan in Israel and managing to reach fourth place.
• Regional Riff: Frequently. Spain and Turkey are among the most prolific (ab/)users of the trope.
• Rule of Three: 2011 had three hosts. The result? Three consecutive reminders that you cannot vote for your own country.
• The Runner-Up Takes It All: Since the change in the voting procedure in 2016 — which saw each country get two sets of points to award, one by a panel of judges, the other by the public — this has happened twice:
  • The first occurrence was the first time this was used (2016): the jury vote was won by Australia and the public vote by Russia, which finished 4th and 5th in the other vote. By finishing second in both sets of votes, Ukraine were able to win.
  • The second occurrence was in 2019: North Macedonia won the jury vote^note but only after a review of the voting revealed that Belarus' jury vote was given incorrectly, with Norway winning the public vote. Both songs scored lowly in the other set of votes (12th and 18th respectively), whilst the Netherlands scored well enough in both sets (3rd in the jury vote, 2nd in the public vote) to win.
  • In some contests, the runner-up has managed to completely outshine the winner.
    • The ultimate example of this would probably be the 1958 Italian entry, Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu. It placed third behind France and Switzerland, but it was a massive commercial success and became the only Eurovision song ever to win a Grammy and the only non-English song ever to win Song and Record of the Year. In 2005, as part of the 50th anniversary celebration of Eurovision, it was voted the second best ever song in the history of the contest. Needless to say, France and Switzerland weren't there.
    • Two other non-winning entries made this list, the Spanish 1973 entry and the British 1968 entry. The winners of their years didn't.
    • Gina G may have only finished 8th in 1996 when competing for the UK with “Ooh Aah…Just a Little Bit,” but the song went on to completely out sell any other ESC song from that year, managed to crack the US Billboard, and is still receives airplay nowadays.
    • While the 2007 winner Molitva is still well appreciated, the runner up Dancing Lasha Tumbai is considered one of the most iconic entries ever and outsold the winner (and any other song of its year) by more than double.
    • 2018 and 2019 provide zig-zagging. Respective runners up Fuego by Eleni Foureira and Soldi by Mahmood (both well known acts) are better regarded by the fandom and more successful in Europe, but their respective conquerors Toy by Netta and Arcade by Duncan Laurence (both of whom were largely or totally unknown pre victory) both became TikTok viral and therefore got more streams in the longer term.
    • 20th placing Nu Folk ballad Snap by Rosa Linn, which was Armenia’s 2022 entry, earned a major TikTok viral success to become one of the most streamed entries ever, this in a year when both the winner (albeit because of their circumstances) and runner up (already well known via the video sharing site) also had clear success.
    • 2023 had Sweden send Loreen for a second time, and she ended up winning. The runner-up, a brightly colored, Genre-Busting, acid trip — "Cha Cha Cha" by Käärijä of Finland — won the televote by a huge margin (133 points) over Sweden and is widely regarded by many Eurovision fans to be "the true winner" that year.
  • The 2022 Australia national final became this for the 2023 contest twice over. The 2022 victor Sheldon Riley placed 15th after his ballad "Not the Same" did well with the juries but fared poorly in the televote. Not only did the second-placed Voyager go on to finish higher the following year at 9th position (albeit also exhibiting a lopsided pattern in favour of the jury vote) but Andrew Lambrou, who came in at seventh in the same national final, also finished in a higher position in 2023, snagging 12th for Cyprus.

S-W

• Scenery Porn:
  • There are a lot of gratuitous tourism adverts for the host country.
  • Azerbaijan combined this with Food Porn in one of the pre-performance vignettes in 2012.
• Self-Deprecation: The style of humor that the Swedes use when they host the contest.
  • 2013 had host Petra Mede sing "Swedish Smörgåsbord", featuring jokes about Swedish Chef, The Seventh Seal, recycling, IKEA, Sexy Scandinavian women and Pippi Longstocking dancing together, House Husband, and dancing Swedish meatballs.
  • 2016 brought us the ultra-meta "Love Love Peace Peace" with jokes about how the gimmicks make the show. There was also a mockumentary series throughout the competition poking fun at Sweden's own Eurovision obsession.
  • 2024's 2nd semifinal had Petra Mede, Charlotte Perrelli and Lynda Woodruff perform "We Just Love Eurovision Too Much", which not only makes fun of Sweden's Eurovision obsession (again), but also takes the mickey out of those who complained about Sweden winning so many times in recent years and had some playful joking around with some other countries such as Ireland, Denmark and especially Finland.
  • France's 2007 entry, Amour à la Francaise is a Gay Paree love song with some weird mixtures of French and English lyrics.
• Shout-Out:
  • A presenter noted in 2011 that the voting process was "the same procedure as every year." The reference probably flew over the heads of the British though.
  • The music video for Italy's 2015 entry "Grande Amore" contains references to Back to the Future, Spider-Man and Ghost (1990).
  • Hungary struck the Ginyu Force pose in the 2018 finals when being introduced.
  • The music video for Czech 2021 entry features multiple references such as Forrest Gump, Lady and the Tramp, Rocky and The Shining
• Silly Love Songs: In copious amounts. This trope reached its apotheosis in 2014 with host Denmark's entry "Cliche Love Song".
• Sixth Ranger: In less than 20 years the number of countries that have participated has more than doubled. Of the 26 countries that have joined in the last 20 years, the vast majority hadn't taken part before because they hadn't existed beyond being parts of Yugoslavia or the Soviet Union. The earliest instance of a semifinal occurred in 1993, in the form of a special entitled "Kvalifikacija za Millstreet" (Qualification for Millstreet). Held after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, it featured seven countries new to Eurovision: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia. Sadly, none of the 3 countries that went to the 1993 contest (Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia) placed in the top 10, though Bosnia got 12 points from Turkey. The whole semi can be viewed here.
• Solo Duet: Jacques Houdek (Croatia 2017) did two different voices in his song: an operatic tenor voice in Italian and a more high-pitched, poppy voice.
• Spectacular Spinning: A not so uncommon feature of some stagings is placing the artist and/or the dancers on a rotating platform or a lazy Susan. Australia 2017, Poland 2019 and, in 2021 alone, San Marino, Moldova and Bulgaria all featured spinning at different speeds. Ukraine in 2014 iconically made the spinning vertical, by including in their stage show a man doing tricks with a giant hamster wheel.
• Spin-Off: There have been several major spin-offs of the competition.
  • Since 1982, the EBU has organized the biennial Eurovision Young Musicians competition, inspired by the BBC's Young Musician of the Year, which features classical performers under the age of 18 playing pieces for a jury.
  • A more direct spin-off is the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. It was patterned off a junior spin-off of Denmark's Dansk Melodi Grand Prix, which itself gained a pan-Nordic version known as MGP Nordic (held between Denmark, Norway and Sweden in 2002). The success of this then expanded the idea into a pan-European version, much like its adult counterpart. However, MGP Nordic did return from 2006 to 2009 when the Nordic countries jointly pulled out due to allegations that the JESC was treating contestants unethically. Each country who participates starts with 12 points already instead of 0 in the voting, just to keep the kids happy. In 2011, these free twelves were delivered by a teenaged presenter in Australia (Yes, they watch it there too, and have competed since becoming a senior ESC contender!). invoked The winner has talked to the presenters of the adult contest in all of its interval acts since 2014.
  • There was also the short-lived Eurovision Dance Contest, which was essentially a pan-European version of Dancing with the Stars/Strictly Come Dancing (especially in the 2008 edition, which switched to celebrity/professional pairings, much like said franchise). It did not fare well at all; only two editions occurred (2007 and 2008, both hosted by the BBC in London and Glasgow, Scotland). Few of the freestyle dances had the supposed national connection and about a dozen involved the removal of clothing. The first winner was Finland, with Poland winning the 2008 contest. A 2009 edition in Azerbaijan was planned, but the entire idea got canned due to a "serious lack of interest." Azerbaijan eventually won the right to host the real thing.
  • 2017 saw the debut of the biennial Eurovision Choir of the Year competition.
  • Also in the works — before its cancellation — was the Eurovision Asia Song Contest; in the grand ESC tradition, actually being from Asia would not have been a requirement, as it was targeting the larger Asia-Pacific region (which includes Australia and New Zealand — the inaugural edition was to be hosted by Gold Coast, Australia).
  • After years of rumors about bringing Eurovision to the United States of America, the American Song Contest was finally announced to debut in 2022, developed by NBC, with the proposed idea being that all 50 states plus Washington D.C. and the Overseas Territories would duke it out. ^note Of course, this doesn't account for Canada, Mexico, or any of the smaller countries in coastal waters, but that's another story.
• Stock Rhymes: It comes with the Gratuitous English. Many lyricists who speak English as a second language (or not even at all) choose stock rhyming words (or don't even bother with rhyming at all!). The worst offending couplet comes from Sweden's entry in 2011, which rhymed "impossible" with "possible". Not to be outdone, Serbia's entry in 2017 contained three lines, which rhymed "deep" with itself. Twice.^note You may be unaware of this song; they failed to qualify that year.
• Stripping Snag: In 1985, hostess Lill Lindfors's skirt snagged on some scenery and tore off while she was walking out. After a brief display of panic, she revealed this was an Invoked Trope when she lowered part of her top, turning it into a dress.
• Stylistic Suck: The one and only "Dustin the Turkey", Ireland's attempt in 2008 at riling up all the other countries with what was surely an attempt at making the absolute worst Eurovision competitor of all time: an ugly puppet turkey with an incredibly obnoxious nasally voice singing a bland and derivative song making fun of everyone else there. Dustin didn't make it very far, though, when a lot of viewers took his act at face value rather than as a parody, since he wasn't really that extreme by the standards of Eurovision.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Bulgaria debuted in Eurovision in 2005, only making it to the final once in their first nine participations. When they returned from a two-year hiatus in 2016, they finally established themselves as solid contenders, with Poli Genova scoring a then-record fourth place^note Also some sweet redemption for Genova, who had been eliminated in the semi-finals back in 2011, and Kristian Kostov topping it the next year with an impressive second-place finish.
  • To a lesser extent, this also applies to the Czech Republic: their first three entries between 2007 and 2009 gained a total of ten points — the last entry of which scored nil points — before withdrawing from the Contest. They returned in 2015 with slightly better fortunes before finally qualifying in 2016 (although they finished second last). They failed to qualify again in 2017 before their massive improvement in results: 2018 saw then finish third in the semifinal before sixth in the final. (There were some doubts about him even performing — he injured his back performing a backflip in the first dress rehearsal and was temporarily unable to walk. He then performed a frontflip in the final.) They then qualified again the following year, finishing second in the semifinal and 11th in the final. While 2021 saw another non-qualification, they were back in the finals in 2022 (finishing 22nd) and 2023 (earning their second Top 10 placement).
• Truck Driver's Gear Change: The definitive recurring element in entries, the last chorus of a song often cranks up a key or two. Why? Because they can. A noteable aversion occurred in 2023 where none of the entries featured such a key change.
• Triumphant Reprise: It is a contest tradition to have the winning performer/s sing their winning entry to close out the show. Due to the short turnaround time between the announcement and the performance some of the more elaborate special effects have to be skipped for the reprise. The producers usually make up for this by dropping confetti instead. Some artists have taken the reprise as an opportunity to change things up, such as 1982 winner Nicole singing in four different languages, 2017 winner Salvador Sobral turning the song into a duet along his song's composer and sister Luisa, just like they did after they won the Portuguese national selection, or 2021 winners Måneskin singing the uncensored lyrics to "Zitti e buoni".
• Watch It Stoned: For some viewers, drinking games are a big part of their Eurovision viewing experience.
• A Wild Rapper Appears!:
  • One of the first instances is the 2008 Croatia entry, which is otherwise a normal ballad sung by Kraljevi Ulice, until 75 Cents comes up.
  • Jala's contribution to the 2016 Bosnia & Herzegovina entry can be summed up as this: comes out of nowhere, drops a rap verse in Bosnian with very dark or plain bizarre lyrics such as "as soon as we're sober I know we won't start a family" sounding rather angry, disappears again.
  • Hungary in 2017, when Joci Papai puts a morbid rap verse into his own religious ballad Origo.
  • German Jenifer Brening ("it's me Jenny B/what you get is what you see" and "if they dissing you on twitter/ don't give up/don't be a quitter") in her duet with Maltese Jessica Muscat for San Marino in 2018.
  • Though only 3 lines long, and with a clear message, Samanta Tina's in "Still Breathing" was incredibly random.
    • Athena Manoukian the same (cancelled) year, and Manizha the following year, alternated singing and rapping in a very unpredictable but coherent manner, but which delighted the fanbase.
  • Also incredibly random was the appearance of Flo Rida in the Sammarinese entry in 2021.
• Witty Banter:
  • Particularly painful when the ones doing it are expressing themselves in a tongue which is not their native one and are not gifted at acting. One notable example of this was when Ukraine first hosted it in 2005, and the most internationally famous locals they could dredge up were the Klitschko brothers (a pair of very good boxers).
  • Everything in 2001 except the songs and voting was done in rhyming couplets.
• Wolf Man: The 2022 Norwegian entry were a masked and anonymous duo called Subwoolfer, who performed wearing yellow wolf masks covering their identities. Cue Wild Mass Guessing as to who were actually underneath the masks. (It was revealed that they were Ben Adams from British/Norwegian boyband A1 and 2003 Norwegian Idol runner up Gaute Ormåsen in 2023.)
• Word Salad Lyrics: With many countries wishing to have their songs in English, it's an inevitability that songs whose writers and artists aren't very fluent in English will show up. Hell, they even show up when the writers and singers are fluent in English, or even have it as a first language.
• Writing Around Trademarks: Mentioning trademarks in the songs is forbidden in the contest rules, so San Marino had to rewrite and retitle their planned entry for 2012, "Facebook Uh, Oh, Oh", into "The Social Network Song (Oh-Oh, Uh, Uh, Oh)" to avoid getting disqualified. Belarus also had to drop a Google Maps allusion in 2014, and in 2017, Italy had to cut down the length of their song and they killed two birds with one stone by axing the second verse, which contained a mention of Chanel.
  • The first instance of this was in 1987 when Melodifestivalen winner "Fyra Bugg och en Coca-Cola"^note Four Buggs and a Coca-Cola by Lotta Engberg was changed to "Boogaloo" to remove references to the drink company and Bugg, a chewing gum company.
  • This was inverted in 2016 after several countries complained that Australia's entry broke this rule by mentioning FaceTime, the Apple telephone product. The EBU rejected the complaint, saying that the lyrics presented it as two words — i.e. "face time" — rather than one.
  • Zigzagged in 2024 by the Finnish act windows95man, who was allowed to mention his name in the song but had to wear a blurred-out logo of said operating system on his shirt.

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Nul points.