For more than half a century, Eurovision has been one of the most popular world music competitions. A participant from a country is selected a few months before the competition, the state that hosts Eurovision is being prepared for a whole year. It is hard to imagine that only 7 countries took part in the first musical battle.
First Eurovision Song Contest
The first Eurovision Song Contest of its kind was held in 1957 in the city of Lugano, Switzerland. It was attended by 7 European countries: Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland and West Germany. Denmark, Austria and Great Britain were also going to take part in it, but for technical reasons they were suspended because they did not submit the application on time.
Two performers from each participating country performed at the competition with their own songs. The organizers considered it desirable that the songs of each of the participants were chosen by a strict jury - the audience of the competition from each of the countries. There were practically no restrictions on songs, performances, the number of props and participants in the number, although they were not supposed to last more than three and a half minutes. The order of performance of the countries was determined by the drawing of lots, but which of the songs to perform first was decided by the participants themselves. The first winner was Switzerland, represented by the singer Lis Assia with the song "Refrain".
In the first Eurovision Song Contest and until 1997, the winner was determined by a qualified jury selected in each country. The rule jury is also not allowed to vote for their own country. Since 1997, the jury has been abolished, and voting is conducted online. The jury was elected even then, it voted, but the marks given by the jury were given to artists only in conditions that did not allow the population to vote. However, since 2009, their grades are again taken into account in the assignment of total points.
New rules for participants
Now Eurovision is overgrown with many rules: each next contest is held in the country that won last year. The participant of "Eurovision" must be over 16 years old, sing live, only 6 participants of the performance can be on the stage at the same time.
However, at different times in the competition, there were also stricter rules. For example, from 1970 to 1998, at Eurovision, a song could sound only in the state language of the participating country. Until 2013, a song that was not performed on stage until September 1 of last year could take part in the musical battle.
Every year, without participating in the semifinals, a representative of the winning country, as well as the countries of the “big five” - France, Great Britain, Germany, Spain and Italy can take part in the competition. The rest of the participants, before performing on the stage of Eurovision itself, must win the hearts of the audience in the semifinals. Now about 40 countries participate in Eurovision every year.
Russia has already participated in the competition 18 times by 2014, the best result was achieved by the performer Dima Bilan, who brought Eurovision to Russia in 2009. The Eurovision Song Contest held in Russia has become one of the most expensive and grandiose contests in history. It was during the Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow that new records were set for the number of points scored by the winner and the number of people who voted for the performers.
