Eurovision Song Contest
Ever since I was a little kid, me and my family have always been watching Eurovision Song Contest. As you can hear in the name, it’s a song contest - in Europe. It has been streaming on TV every year since 1956 I think. And Sweden has been in it most years if not all.And as I said, I’ve always watched it since I was little and I’ve always loved it very much. But have been more interested in actually engaging in almost everything, and to be more updated about it the past few years.Let me explain a little how it works. - Most countries in Europe, some on the edge of Europe and some outside of Europe are competing. And it’s a different number of countries every year, because all countries aren’t always in the competition because of different reasons. For example, one year it was like 45 or 46 countries and other years it has been 36 or 37 and all in between. In the first Eurovision I think there was only 10 countries competing. So it has evolved and still varies every year since then.Every country that’s competing the said year, chooses one artist to represent their country and in most countries that’s decided by a national song contest. In Sweden we have one of those and it’s called ’Melodifestivalen’. I watch both melodifestivalen and Eurovision every year, it’s like a tradition. The winners are decided by votes, both nationally, and internationally to a certain degree. It’s a bit complicated to explain more, but anyways.Eurovision streams most often in May, but can sometimes be earlier. And it’s built up like this: As I said earlier, all the countries competing the said year, chooses a representative to go to the country hosting Eurovision that year. The hosts for every year are the country who won the year before.All the countries have the chance to go to the final, but nothing is for certain except for the countries they call ”the big five”, which are the countries paying most for the competition to happen and the host country’s representative. They are already qualified for the final. But the rest of the countries compete in two semi-finals to fight for places in the grand final, which means all the countries are ”split in two” to begin with. It’s 10 countries from both semi-finals that make it to the grand final. And the qualifiers gets chosen by votes from the public and a professional jury of singers and song-writers or something I think. You can’t vote for your own country in either the semi-finals or the grand final, and you can only vote on other countries in the semi-final your country participates in.(The competition is obviously live because of the whole voting system.) Both semi-finals AND the grand final are the same week. And while the semi-finals are during two week days, the grand final is on the weekend. The grand final are maxed, iconic, and often have more things happening than the semi-finals, which is pretty self-explanatory.For me and many other swedes it’s a tradition to watch it every year. In general I just LOVE Eurovision, I basically grew up with it and it’s something I recommend everyone who can to watch. Because it’s really amazing!
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