The 2021 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest was held in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, from 18 May 2021 to 22 May 2021. The city was originally due to host the event in 2020 after Duncan Laurence's victory in Tel Aviv in 2019, but the COVID-19 Pandemic striking Europe in early 2020 forced the EBU to announce the cancellation of that year's edition, a first for the 60-plus-year history of the contest. It was later decided that the Netherlands was going to keep the hosting rights for the following year, with the same host city, venue, stage design, slogan and presenters (with Nikkie de Jager a.k.a. NikkieTutorials, originally chosen as online host, being promoted to full host alongside Edsilia Rombley, Jan Smit and Chantal Janzen), and a remixed logo and visual design.The slogan for this edition is "Open Up" which, although originally selected for 2020, sounds particularly hopeful after a year of restrictions and lockdowns imposed all over the globe to counteract the spread of the pandemic.
All 41 countries that were to participate in 2020 initially confirmed their return to the competition, but after Armenia's withdrawal and Belarus' disqualification in March 2021 the number of participating entries dropped to 39, the lowest number since 2014. The EBU Reference Group initially considered allowing all the 41 songs of 2020 to compete one year later as an exception to the September 1st rule, but then decided against. Countries were still free to select the artist they wanted, and 26 of themnote fielded their would-be 2020 entrant anew with a different song, 2 of which (Estonia and Lithuania) after they won their national selection for a second time.While previously all the song vocals had to be delivered live, either on or just right off stage, this year featured a one-off trial allowing backing vocals to be part of the prerecorded backing track, to reduce the need for more people to travel to Rotterdam in each delegation (lead vocal parts still have to be live).
During the planning stage, a number of "scenarios" were developed to ensure that the contest will take place in any case in a COVID-19-safe situation. The contest eventually took place under "Scenario B", with all acts except Australianote and Icelandnote performing live from Rotterdam, a reduced live audience, a partially virtual press centre and reduced side events. As a back-up measure, all entrants were required to film a "live-on-tape" performance to be shown in the case they had been unable to perform live, as would happen with Australia (Iceland used instead a clip of their second rehearsal). The live-on-tape performances of almost all the actsnote would eventually be showcased one week later in the Eurovision Song Celebration: Live-On-Tape online event.
The contest was won by Italy's Måneskin and their song "Zitti e buoni", the third win for the country and their first one since 1990, and the second time a member of the "Big Five" won (after Lena in 2010) since the system was implemented in 2002.
Tropes seen during this year's contest include:
- The Ace:
- With Australia's first ever elimination from the semifinals, Ukraine is now left as the only country with a clean qualification streak.
- Italy caps off a decade of good performances since their return in 2011 (including seven top-ten finishes in nine previous attempts) with a victory at last.
- All Issues Are Political Issues:
- Armenia was forced to sit out in early March 2021 due to recent resurgence of conflict in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh with Azerbaijan (which, given its better resources, was nevertheless able to send anew its prospective 2020 entrant Samira Efendi). It was also hard for Armenia’s popular 2020 act Athena Manoukian, Armenian by descent but coming from Greece and who had not been there since the previous contest was cancelled, to travel to Yerevan and carry out the complex undertakings including filming the live-on-tape performance; other acts had also been linked before they withdrew.
- After VAL, the band selected to represent Belarus in 2020, openly supported protests against allegations of fraud surrounding the August 2020 elections that reelected long-time strongman Alexander Lukashenko, their national broadcaster BTRC announced that VAL would not be returning in 2021 because they had "no conscience". Another band, Galasy ZMesta, was selected instead, and immediately came under fire because their song "Ya nauchu tebya" ("I'll Teach You") was interpreted as being openly mocking the same protests. The EBU, invoking the "no politics" rule, asked the BTRC to submit a new song, but when their new submission, "Pesnyu pro zaytsa" ("Song About Hares"), was likewise found in violation of the rule ("hare" being a pejorative slang for gay men in Belarus), to say nothing of the emergence of the band's pro-Lukashenko stance and its history of transphobic and homophobic remarks, Belarus was disqualified from the 2021 contest, and a week after the contest, BTRC was slapped with an indefinite suspension (before being expelled outright from the EBU a month later, rendering Belarus ineligible for Eurovision) following global outrage over the arrest of opposition figure Roman Protasevich and continued crackdown on independent media.
- Cyprus's "El Diablo" came under fire by conservative Christian groups, asking the national broadcaster CyBC to withdraw the song which was accused of promoting satanism.
- North Macedonia's singer, Vasil Garvanliev, was investigated by national broadcaster MRT when a shot of the music video for his entry "Here I Stand" appeared to include a Bulgarian flag (actually an unrelated artwork), generating dispute due to the rocky relationship between both nations. Vasil himself received personal attacks when he confirmed that he holds Bulgarian citizenship through his grandmother, though thankfully he was later cleared by the investigation and the video was edited to remove the controversial shot.
- Latvia's Samanta Tīna and Russia's Manizha Sangin were the focus of controversy from national conservative audiences for their feminist-themed songs (and in the latter case, for being an ethnic Tajik immigrated to Russia as a refugee).
- Israel's Eden Alene received ire from some viewers (especially after qualifying) because of the then-newsworthy conflict unfolding in Gaza between Israel and Palestine in the weeks before and during Eurovision.
- Subverted, by and large, with the United Kingdom's embarrassing dual "nil points." Seeing as the song was not only completely passed over by the juries, but also alongside three major and well-respected EU countries (one the host!) in the televote (another received just 3 tele voting points, none from an immediate neighbour, whilst Ireland propped up their heat), it was pretty obvious that the usual "Europe hates us because of Brexit" argument wasn't going to work (not that that wasn't tried by the usual pundits) and that the issue came down to not having the right song/staging for so competitive a year as 2021.
- Ascended Extra:
- As usual, some acts previously participated as backup vocalists or were otherwise involved with the contest before getting the full ticket:
- Ksenija Knežević (one-third of Serbia's Hurricane), Vincent Bueno and Vasil Garvanliev previously sang backup for Montenegro in Vienna 2015, Austria in Kyiv 2017 and North Macedonia in Tel Aviv 2019, respectively.
- Destiny Chukunyere of Malta won the 2015 Junior Eurovision Song Contest in Sofia, and she sang backup to Michela in Tel Aviv 2019 as well.
- Greece's Stefania Liberakakis previously participated in the 2016 Junior Eurovision Song Contest in Valletta as a member of the girl band Kisses representing the Netherlands.
- Barbara Pravi of France co-wrote the French entries in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in Gliwice 2019 and Warsaw 2020, the latter of which won the trophy.
- Celebrity makeup artist Nikkie de Jager, best-known for her YouTube vlog NikkieTutorials, was only meant to be the online host of the canceled 2020 edition. This time, she has been promoted to full-time co-host, in the process making history as the first transgender host.
- As usual, some acts previously participated as backup vocalists or were otherwise involved with the contest before getting the full ticket:
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: A brief skit in the Grand Final has Nikkie showing the audience around the backstage, before being distracted by a worker carrying the Eurovision trophy in front of her.
- Background Halo: At the end of Ukraine's performance, the dancers raised their TRON-esque ring lights behind the head of vocalist Kateryna Pavlenko of Go_A, giving her the appearance of a halo.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Hurricane of Serbia are a three-member Girl Group who have these hair colors.
- Bowdlerise:
- Italy's entry, "Zitti e buoni" by Måneskin, was edited after it won the Sanremo Music Festival to remove some profanity. However, their winners' performance featured the uncensored version of the song.
- Gestures are not immune either: Finland's Blind Channel were asked not to do the middle finger from their national final performance, while Germany revised the middle finger costume appearing in the music video into a V-sign costume. Despite the change there were several moments where the index finger, built around the wearer's left arm, lowered which meant the hand still looked like it was flipping the bird for a few seconds.
- The Bus Came Back:
- The second semifinal features three returning artists. Amazingly, all three of them qualified for the final.
- Senhit of San Marino returns after going as far as the semifinals in Düsseldorf 2011.
- Sanja Vučić flies again the Serbian flag after Stockholm 2016, this time as a member of the trio Hurricane.
- Natalia Gordienko, who represented Moldova in Athens 2006 alongside Arsenium, returns as a solo act.
- During jury points presentation, a few past singers and presenters returned as spokespeople: Lucy Ayoub of Israel (co-presenter, Tel Aviv 2019), Ida Nowakowska of Poland (presenter, Gliwice 2019 juniors and Warsaw 2020 juniors), Eldar Gasimov and Nikki Jamal of Azerbaijan (winners, Düsseldorf 2011; Gasimov was also a co-presenter at Baku 2012), Aminata of Latvia (sixth, Vienna 2015), Ryan O Shaughnessy of Ireland (sixteenth, Lisbon 2018), Sergey Stepanov (the famed "Epic Sax Guy" of Sunstroke Project) of Moldova (22nd, Oslo 2010; third, Kyiv 2017), Joanna Dragneva of Bulgaria (semifinalist, Belgrade 2008, as part of Deep Zone), Oto Nemsadze of Georgia (semifinalist, Tel Aviv 2019), Andrius Mamontovas of Lithuania (sixth, Athens 2006, as part of LT United), Polina Gagarina of Russia (runner-up, Vienna 2015), Carla Lazzari of France (fifth, Gliwice 2019 juniors), and Carola Häggkvist of Sweden (winner, Rome 1991; third, Munich 1983; fifth, Athens 2006).
- The second semifinal features three returning artists. Amazingly, all three of them qualified for the final.
- Call-Back:
- This edition's logo is a modified version of that of last year's canceled edition, itself a call-back to the minimalist, circular logos of past editions hosted by the Netherlands. Both the 2020 and 2021 logos show the national colours of the participating nations, but whereas the former is arranged in chronological order of their entry into the contest, the latter is an abstract representation of the distances of their capitals relative to Rotterdam.
- Sweden's postcard prominently features a dandelion, the floral motif of the 2016 edition in Stockholm, the last time the contest was held in Sweden.
- Senhit's postcard included a video of her performance from the 2011 contest, while Samanta Tīna's featured clips from all of her national final attempts prior to making it to the contest at last. Destiny's postcard includes a clip from her Junior Eurovision 2015 appearance as well.
- The Grand Final's "Rock the Roof" interval act features a medley of past Eurovision winners from various rooftops across Rotterdam—"Heroes" by Mans Zelmerlow of Sweden (Vienna 2015), "Ding-a-Dong" by Teach-In of the Netherlands (Stockholm 1975), "J'aime la vie" by Sandra Kim of Belgium (Bergen 1986), "De Troubadour" by Lenny Kuhr of the Netherlands (co-winner, Madrid 1969), "My Number One" by Elena Paparizou of Greece (Kyiv 2005), and "Hard Rock Hallelujah" by Lordi of Finland (Athens 2006).
- The Chanteuse: Definitely the vibe given by France's entry, "Voilà" by Barbara Pravi. She even calls herself "la chanteuse à demi" ("half a chanteuse"/"half a singer") in the lyrics.
- Color Motif: A lot of acts this year chose to go with vaguely neon 80s-inspired stage shows. Samira Efendi of Azerbaijan, Albina Grčić of Croatia, Fyr & Flamme of Denmark, Stefania Liberakakis of Greece, Eden Alene of Israel, The Roop of Lithuania, Destiny Chukunyere of Malta, Natalia Gordienko of Moldova, and Rafał Brozowski of Poland all prominently included pink, purple and/or blue in their backdrops.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Not overall, but the very low televote marks announced for most of the countries on the lower half of the jury rankings (including four straight nul points for the UK, Spain, Germany, and the Netherlands) was an early indication that the televote was absolutely dominated by a handful of countries—and it very much was, as only eight or nine countries from Russia upward took at least 100 points each (as did in the juries). In particular, the televote's top three—Italy, Ukraine, and France—were the only countries to earn televote points from every other country except themselves (with Italy receiving as low as 2 points from the Dutch public), and fourth-placed Finland only missed out on Georgia's.
- Delayed Reaction: The moment Måneskin of Italy won the contest, drummer Ethan Torchio can be seen visibly stunned and staring at the scoreboard for a few seconds, even as his bandmates and the rest of the Italian delegation begin celebrating.
- Determinator: Samanta Tīna had previously tried to represent her native Latvia five times (and twice for neighbouring Lithuania), and she finally won the 2020 edition of Supernova, Latvia's national selection show, on her sixth try. After the contest was cancelled, national broadcaster LTV thankfully selected her internally anew for 2021, though she unfortunately stalled in the semifinal.
- Discretion Shot: This year's "postcards"note feature tiny houses made of glowing frames, placed somewhere in the Netherlands, slowly being filled with household items, most prominently pictures and/or video clips of the performing artist/s. The postcards culminate with holograms of the artist/s briefly appearing inside or outside his/her/their "houses", and end with a beam of white light bouncing off the house, reflected into into the colours of the country's flag. This concept was developed to allow contestants to record their postcard inside their homeland.
- Dresses the Same: A curious coincidence saw five separate contestants (Malta's Destiny Chukunyere, Croatia's Albina Grčić, Cyprus's Elena Tsagrinou, Albania's Anxhela Peristeri and Moldova's Natalia Gordienco) opt for silver outfits with fringes. Norway's TIX also incorporates silver glitter in his own costume.
- Eliminated from the Race: Australia, Croatia, Ireland, North Macedonia, Romania, and Slovenia in the first semi-final. From the second, Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, and Poland. Notably, this is the very first elimination of Australia, which now left fellow semifinalist Ukraine as the last remaining non-Big Five nation yet to be eliminated from the semifinals.
- Epic Fail: For the second consecutive year (not counting the canceled 2020 edition), the United Kingdom (represented anew by prospective 2020 singer James Newman) languished at the very bottom of the standings. Worse still, they also suffered their first nul points since Jemini in Riga 2003, and as if to add insult to injury, they also had the dubious honour of being the very first country to blank out with both juries and televotes in the split results era, a feat in itself given that splitting both votes was seen as significantly reducing the risk of earning nul points, and it is of little consolation that Jendrik Sigwart of Germany, Blas Cantó of Spain, and Jeangu Macrooy of host Netherlands also failed to get any televote points (the first time four countries received nul points, at least from one voting segment), because at least they had jury points to somewhat ease the pain (respectively, three, six, and eleven).
- Graceful Loser: The four acts that received zero points in the televote were all extremely good sports about their results. James Newman and Jendrik Sigwart cheered as hard as some of the higher-scoring entries did for their own scores.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: Another recurring trope in the contest. Those year's examples are:
- Gratuitous English: Manizha's song "Russian Woman" (representing, unsurprisingly, Russia) is mostly in Russian but includes some lines in English.
- Gratuitous French: "Je me casse" by Destiny Chukunyere of Malta repeats the French title (a slang expression meaning "I don't care" or "I'm out") in an otherwise Anglophone song.
- Gratuitous Italian: "Adrenalina" by Senhit of San Marino repeats the Italian title (obviously meaning "adrenaline") in an otherwise English song. Senhit herself is Italian-Eritrean.
- Gratuitous Spanish:
- Like their 2020 entry "Hasta la vista", Hurricane's "Loco Loco" is mostly in Serbian but has a repeated title in Spanish. It also includes a sentence in English.
- "El Diablo" by Elena Tsagrinou for Cyprus is in English but the title and some other random words are sung in Spanish.
- Zig-Zagged by other Anglophone songs that include a line or two in the competing country's national language, like Israel, Czech Republic, or San Marino, making it technically not "gratuitous".
- Guest Fighter: As is normally the case at Eurovision, several countries are represented by acts that are not necessarily nationals, as the EBU does not have nationality-based restrictions on entrants (any that may exist are purely at the discretion of national broadcasters):
- San Marino, which is prone to outsource their entries since it is a microstate, is represented once again by Senhit Zadik Zadik, an Italian-Eritrean (though her hometown, Bologna, is the closest major Italian city to San Marino). The song also includes a verse from American rapper Flo Rida.
- Likewise, the flag of Cyprus is again flown by a Greek singer, Elena Tsagrinou.
- Downplayed with Stefania Liberakakis of Greece, born in the Netherlands (which she represented back in the 2016 junior edition in Valletta as part of the band Kisses) but representing her parents' ancestral homeland.
- Downplayed again with host Netherlands, represented anew by Jeangu Macrooy, who was born in Suriname (a former Dutch colony) but who has been living in the Netherlands since 2014.
- Guest-Star Party Member:
- When Kateryna Pavlenko, lead singer of Ukraine's Go_A, had a health scare the morning before their second rehearsals, stand-in singernote Emmie Van Stijn subbed for her temporarily - and the band themselves praised her for doing a really good job, despite singing a complicated song in a language she didn't know. The band invited Emmie to sit with them in the green room during the semi-final as a thank you for her help.
- During rehearsals of San Marino's song "Adrenalina", Italian rapper Don Jiggy delivered the rap section in place of Flo Rida, who was busy judging a bikini contest in Miami.
- Incredibly Long Note: Natalia Gordienko (Moldova) holds a 17-second-long note at the end of "Sugar".
- Inspirationally Disadvantaged: Norway's representative, Andreas Haukeland, went by the stage name "TIX" to symbolize his struggle with Tourette's syndrome. Towards the crescendo of his song "Fallen Angel", he briefly removes his shades to show off the effects of his disease (namely, his twitching eyes).
- Keet: Jendrik Sigwart of Germany is very happy to be there, and it shows, even when he received nul points from the televote. Vaidotas Valiukevičius, vocalist of Lithuania's The Roop, is a more restrained example.
- Last Note Hilarity: At the end of "10 Years", Iceland's Daði and Gagnamagnið hold their poses for several seconds. Then a blast of pyro suddenly goes up to conclude the performance.note
- Loophole Abuse:
- One of the reasons for allowing pre-recorded background vocals was to reduce the number of people travelling in each delegation, to limit the risk of a COVID-19 infection. Many countries just chose to add more dancers instead, rendering this reason void.
- After Finland's Blind Channel were prohibited from showing their middle fingers on stage, they resorted to painting them red instead so that they would pop out all the same.
- Similarly, Germany's Jendrick had a background dancer who was in a costume originally of a hand flipping the bird and after not being allowed to use the costume, it was made into doing a V-sign instead. But the index finger on the costume is where the dancer's left arm is, meaning that whenever she puts her arm down, the costume is back to being a middle finger again.
- Missed Him by That Much: Croatia was only five points shy of qualifying from the first semifinal. To make it worse, it placed ninth with the televote and tenth with the juries meaning that both sets of voters ranked it among their qualifiers, but the calculation of points which took into account the respective rankings of other countries led Croatia to barely fall out of the upper 10.
- Multilingual Song:
- The Dutch entry "Birth of a New Age" is mostly in English but with a chorus in Sranan Tongo, the lingua franca of Jeangu Macrooy's home country Suriname.
- Albina's song "Tick-Tock" is in both English and Croatian.
- My Greatest Second Chance:
- Applies to all of the 26 artists who were chosen to represent their country again after the cancellation of the 2020 contest, more so for Uku Suviste of Estonia and The Roop of Lithuania, who had to win their national selection shows anew, though they both benefited from wildcard passes (the former skipped the internal preselection process, while the latter went straight to the final).
- Subverted with Aksel of Finland and The Mamas of Sweden, who lost their second chances to Blind Channel and Tusse, respectively. Also subverted with the former lead singer of Hooverphonic (Belgium), Luka Cruysberghs, who was dismissed from the band and replaced with Geike Arnaert in late 2020.
- And Inverted by Little Big, who declined a chance to participate after being selected for 2020 on grounds that a new artist should get a chance this time around.
- Passing the Torch: Subverted—in a break from tradition, the outgoing winner, Duncan Laurence, was unable to pass the Eurovision trophy to Måneskin of Italy after he tested positive for COVID-19.
- Pregnant Badass: Árný Fjóla of Iceland's Gagnamagnið was pregnant with her and Daði Freyr's second child when they performed on stage.
- Rearrange the Song:
- Ukraine's entry "Shum", which wasn't intended for Eurovision in the first place, had its lyrics rewritten and was cut short to fit 3 minutes.
- Israel's entry "Set Me Free" had its instrumentals revamped before the contest and a new ending section was added.
- Sequel Song: Iceland's "Ten Years" by Daði & Gagnamagnið is an outright sequel to their would-be 2020 entry and viral hit "Think About Things".
- Sibling Team:
- Iceland's Daði Freyr is once again joined onstage by his sister Sigrún Birna as backup vocalist.
- Xillian Macrooy, twin brother of the Netherlands' singer Jeangu Macrooy, accompanied him on stage as one of his backup vocalists.
- Shirtless Scene: Damiano David, lead singer of Italy's Måneskin, performed in high-waisted leather pants, suspenders, and nothing else. During their winning reprise, guitarist Thomas Raggi abandoned his jacket and also performed shirtless.
- Shout-Out: Finland's Blind Channel brought out a "PLAY JAJA DING DONG!!!" sign during the second semi-final. Come the final, they topped themselves by showing a pair of speech bubble cardboards with the same line, and some of the band members even wear masks in the likeness of Olaf Yohansson, the guy who frequently requests "Jaja Ding Dong". Then Iceland topped all of that come the jury votes presentation, as their spokesperson is none other than Olaf's actor, Hannes Óli Ágústsson, still playing in-character.
- The Show Must Go On: The "scenarios" system was elaborated as a contingency plan to avoid cancelling the contest for a second time even if the COVID-19-related situation worsens. Eventually, scenario B ("1.5 meter") was adopted, with all the acts performing live from the main stage with the exception of Australia and Iceland, and a live audience as part of the Dutch "Fieldlab" programme. The other scenarios were:
- Scenario A ("normal"): holding the contest exactly like past years. This scenario was ruled out in February 2021 by the EBU and the Dutch broadcasters.
- Scenario C ("travelrestrictive"): like Scenario B, but with acts performing remotely and a fully virtual press centre.
- Scenario D ("lockdown"): all acts performing remotely, no audience nor press on site, no side events.
- Throw the Dog a Bone:
- Given their spotty qualification records, four countries are relieved to qualify from the second semifinal:
- Finland's Blind Channel represented metal, a genre seldom heard at Eurovision; come the final, they scored sixth, their very best finish to date since Lordi won Athens 2006, and tying Marion Rung from all the way back in Luxembourg 1973 for best non-winning finish.
- Portugal's The Black Mamba sent in their first wholly-English song in the contest, and managed to finish a decent twelfth, their best since Salvador Sobral won Kyiv 2017.
- While San Marino's Senhit only managed a paltry twenty-second (despite having Flo Rida on board), it was still a lot better than when she was eliminated from the semifinals the last time she sang at the contest ten years ago.
- Switzerland's Gjon "Gjon's Tears" Muharremaj was an early bookies' favourite, and in the final not only did he manage to finish at third, one spot higher than Luca Hanni from Tel Aviv 2019 and tying with Annie Cotton from Millstreet 1993, but even led the jury votes.
- While three of the Big Five had a pretty miserable year, the other two nations stood out for taking top spots:
- Ten years since they returned to the contest, and after a decade of ups and downs book-ended by runner-up finishes in both Düsseldorf 2011 and Tel Aviv 2019, as well as third-place in Vienna 2015, Italy, long considered a perennial favourite, finally lives up to its potential and wins its first trophy in 31 years, courtesy of a fiery rock and roll performance from Måneskin.
- France saw mixed fortunes throughout the 2010s, and despite Amir leading them to an impressive sixth in Stockholm 2016, they have since struggled to match his success, with their prospective 2020 entry, "Mon alliée" by Tom Leeb, being panned by the French public and Eurovision fans alike for being mostly sung in English and written by foreign songwriters. On the heels of their first-ever triumph at the 2020 junior edition at Warsaw, France regained its determination to do well in the senior edition, held a strong national final, and the emerging winner—Barbara Pravi, who also wrote their aforementioned winning song, "J'imagine" by Valentina Tronel (as well as their fifth-placing effort from the previous year, "Bim bam toi" by Carla Lazzari)—quickly emerged as a favourite. And while Pravi couldn't quite win the whole thing, she nevertheless finished third with televoters (and, like Italy and Ukraine, received televote points from every other country) and second with the juries to earn second overall, tying Amina Annabi's record in Rome 1991 for France's best finish since Marie Myriam won London 1977.
- The one major example in the first semi was Belgium's Hooverphonic, as their country had gone from three consecutive top-ten finishes between 2015-2017 (including two fourth-place finishes) to two straight non-qualifications. This marked the first occasion a Flemish entry represented Belgium on Dutch soil, and in spite of the band's popularity, there were worries that the song would be too low-key to advance to the final. Fortunately, the juries loved it, and Belgium qualified for the first time since 2017.
- Iceland's Daði Freyr and his band Gagnamagnið was long considered a favourite dating all the way back to their prospective 2020 entry and viral hit "Think About Things", until bandmate Jóhann Sigurður tested positive for COVID-19, forcing the band to stay in a hotel while footage from their rehearsal was played in lieu of a live performance. Nevertheless, their song, "10 Years", earned fourth overall (fifth with juries and televotes), its best finish since Yohanna placed second behind Norway's Alexander Rybak in Moscow 2009.
- Given their spotty qualification records, four countries are relieved to qualify from the second semifinal:
- Vocal Range Exceeded: Israel's Eden Alene broke records for the highest note with her song "Set Me Free" at B6.
- Wardrobe Malfunction: During Måneskin's Triumphant Reprise lead singer Damiano David's pants split at the front. By the time the band reached the press conference the entire right leg had ripped open. Damiano raising his leg in the air to show off the damage quickly became a meme.
- A Wild Rapper Appears!: The Internet was sent into a frenzy when San Marino's "Adrenalina" featured a verse from none other than Flo Rida.
