The Eurovision competition returns to the city of Vienna, a temple of classical music, which was preferred to the Innsbruck Mountain Station, the Austrian Public Radiotelevision, the organizer of the next year, announced on Wednesday, whose final is scheduled on May 16, AFP and Agerpres informs.
The capital of Austria, a city with over two million inhabitants, applied under the slogan “Europe, Shall We Dance?” (“Europe, do you want to dance?”), Based on the success of the edition hosted in 2015, after the triumph of Drag-Queen Conchita Wurst.
This time, the young JJ artist, a 24-year-old Austro-Filipinus, was the one who brought the trophy to Austria.
“The reputation of Vienna, considered one of the most important cities in the world on a musical level, as well as its situation in the heart of Europe transforms it into the ideal host” for the 70th edition of the competition, commented in a statement Martin Green, the director of Eurovision, following the announcement made by the ERF on the choice of the city-city.
Over 160 million viewers
Vienna was the host Eurovision in 1967, just over 10 years after the competition was created. However, the event no longer resembles its beginning period: now extravagant, spectacular and often kitsch, it is watched by 166 million viewers from 37 countries, seducting the new generations through social networks.
The contest is accompanied every year by a series of controversies: although he later apologized for the statements made, Johannes Pietsch, Alias JJ, said, after being declared a winner, that he regrets the presence of Israel in the context of the bloody offensive in Gaza, expressing his hope that this country will be excluded in 2026.
The Eurovision 2025 winner wants the exclusion of the country that has completed 2 from next year's edition
The artist also launched a call “to a greater transparency” regarding the vote of the public, who propelled this year, in Basel, on the second place the Israeli singer, a survivor of the bloody attack on October 7, 2023, Yuval Raphael.
On the streets of Switzerland, as in Sweden a year before, the pro-Palestinian protesters wanted to make their voice heard.
There were also countries excluded from the competition: Belarus in 2021 after the challenged re -election of President Aleksandr Lukaşnko. Russia was also excluded a year later after invading Ukraine.
“Queer and Woke show”
Eurovision is also a great holiday of tolerance, offering an important visibility to the LGBT+community.
In Vienna, bright signals for pedestrians that represent gay couples were installed in 2015 instead of ordinary symbols. Appreciated by the public, these icons resisted and were implemented in other cities in Austria.
The far-right Austrian party FPO, winner last year of the legislative elections, but failed to form a government, denounced the Eurovision as “a queer, leftist and woke show”, emphasizing the “irresponsibility” of such a manifestation at a time when Austria, targeted by a European Commission for a ” history of debt ”.
In Switzerland, the costs of organizing the event amounted to several tens of millions of euros.
Despite the costs not at all negligible, the social-democratic mayor Michael Ludwig said he was “prepared” for this challenge, sending Vienna as a “cosmopolitan” capital, accustomed to international events, with “huge accommodation capabilities” and extremely well connected with the rest of Europe by air and railway.
The Eurovision competition will take place, as in 2015, in Wiener Stadhalle, a concert hall that can accommodate up to 16,000 people.
Under the slogan “Together on Top” (“Together at the top”), the Innsbruck tourist resort, located in the Tirol region, relied on the Alpine landscapes and its “hospitality”, but this city with 132,000 inhabitants lost the competition for the house in front of the capital.
