A Recap of the 70th Annual Eurovision Contest

Photo Credit: Eurovision

The 70th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest was held from May 12–16 in Vienna, Austria. The contest saw performances from 35 participants, concluding with a win from Bulgaria.

The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual competition hosted by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) that first debuted in 1956, featuring countries part of the EBU, as well as some associate members. Each country has a representative performer or group of performers who present an original, three-minute, unreleased song. Representing juries of countries, as well as the public, then dish out points to their top 10 songs.

This year, the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest was Bulgaria, represented by DARA, who sang “Bangaranga.” The runners-up were Israel, represented by Noam Batten, who sang “Michelle,” and Romania, represented by Alexandra Căpitănescu, who sang “Choke Me.” Bulgaria received 516 points, which led them to a record-breaking 173-point margin of victory. 

Another significant event was the five-party boycott that Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Iceland, and Slovenia participated in. The act was a protest directed towards Israel’s participation in the contest. It was continued by audience members when Israel’s representative, Yuval Raphael, had her performance disrupted by chants of "stop the genocide" during her song, as per BBC. According to The Independent, representatives for Israeli broadcaster KAN shared that protesters “were blocked by security officials, but Raphael was shaken and upset.” 

Notable developments at the contest included Bulgaria’s high score, along with the UK placing last. The UK has been consistently placing low on the Eurovision rankings in recent years and was only able to obtain one point from the competition, awarded by the Ukrainian jury. Their representative performer was Look Mum No Computer, who sang the song “Eins, Zwei, Drei.” Before the competition, he told BBC that he hopes Eurovision is ready to “get synthesized”, referencing his synthetic, unique style of music.