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Drag acts and bad acts,
and Terry Wogan's wig!
Mad acts and sad acts,
it was Johnny Logan's gig!
Irelande Douze Pointe, Ireland's entry to the 2008 contest. "Sung" by Dustin the Turkey, a puppet.

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) operates a network known as Eurovision, which is primarily used to distribute coverage of special events (such as sporting events, the Pope's Easter Mass, the New Year's concert in Vienna, etc.) throughout its member broadcasters. It produces very few programmes in its own right, but this is far and away the best known. So much so, in fact, that many folks would be quite surprised to learn that "Eurovision" could refer to anything but the Eurovision Song Contest, accredited by Guinness World Records as the longest-running annual TV music contest in the world.

The contest has run since 1956 — although 2020's Contest was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic — and was quite well-respected in its early years, with established artists such as Cliff Richard and Serge Gainsbourg taking part, and others, such as Dana and Sandie Shaw, launching successful careers off the back of the show. The original idea was to foster post-World War II unity among European nations outside the communist bloc and showcase their varied musical talent. What's interesting to note that this contest is open not just to members of the European Union, nor just European countries, but to all countries which are active broadcasting members of the EBU note , which also includes Israel, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan (As Graham Norton, current commentator for the United Kingdom via BBC, said on his show when explaining the premise, "We use 'European' very loosely."). With the contest taking a credibility dive in The '70s, the only acts to become international stars for the next few decades were ABBA, Riverdancenote  and Céline Dionnote , though several performers have remained popular in their home countries after entering the show. This has started to change in recent years with many participants remaining internationally active thanks to the rise of digital distribution (and a rise in quality of songs), with 2019 and 2021 winners Duncan Laurence and Måneskin looking to potentially become the first world-famous artists since ABBA to springboard off the contest.

The format of the show has changed over the years, but remains broadly the same: First a series of songs is performed, then voting takes place to determine a winner. The votes from each country are "telephoned" (now shown by live feed) in to the studio one at a time, providing dramatic tension. The traditional way to start this is to say "Hello, [host city], this is [capital of particular country] calling". The winner hosts next year's contest, which can do wonders for the tourist industry in obscure cities, though it can be ruinously expensive to host.

Songs must be original, no more than 3 minutes long and contain some lyrics (no Instrumentalsnote ). Between 1966 and 1972, and 1977 to 1998, songs had to be sung in one of the official languages of the country entering. However, this rule was removed after a long string of wins by Ireland, who were felt to have an unfair advantage by being one of only three countries able to sing in Englishnote  which was rapidly becoming the lingua franca of Europe. Any language requirements that are imposed are now at the discretion of the individual broadcasters.

At the contest, each country cannot have more than 6 people on stage during their performing spot, and no animals are allowed. Starting with the 1990 contest, all performers in competition must be at least 16 years old on the day of performancenote . All vocals must be performed live, a rule that has remained stubbornly in place despite the rising prevalence of vocal samplingnote . Until 1998, all music had to be live as well. The host nation would provide an orchestra to back all the competitors and each nation would send a conductor (with the host nation keeping a conductor of retainer for those countries without one). Any instruments not included with the orchestra would be provided by one of the people on the stage. In 1999, host nation Israel decided to drop the live orchestra as a cost-cutting measure and performances were sung to backing tracks; this practice has remained in place for every contest since.

Before 1997, all voting was done by panels of expert judges. However, following accusations of bloc voting, public phone votes were introduced. Some have argued that this has only made it worse; callers can't vote for their own country, but emigrants can vote for their homeland. Also, UK's zero points in 2003 was alleged to be an expression of continental Europe's backlash over their involvement in the recent USA-led invasion of Iraq (although the real reason was probably Jemini's horrifying off-key singing), and by 2007 this had become so prevalent among former communist countries that Malta fixed their votes in protest. The situation in 2007, followed by a similar (but less prevalent) repeat the next year, prompted the EBU to change the voting rules to a hybrid system which give jury and popular votes a 50-50 footing in weighing the results, which contributed to leveling the contest for Western countries from 2009 onwards.

The definition of Europe in "Eurovision" has been extended in recent years. Israel has participated since 1973, while the Caucasian nations of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan joined in 2006, 2007 and 2008 respectively. Australia was also invited to participate for the sixtieth anniversary of the contest in 2015, becoming a regular participant from then onwards with their contract set through 2023.

In March 2020, it was announced that the planned 65th edition of the contest (which was set to happen in Rotterdam, Netherlands, following Duncan Laurence's 2019 win) had been canceled due to concerns about the growing COVID-19 pandemic sweeping Europe and the rest of the world. This marked the first-ever instance of the competition not happening since it began in 1956. That same month, preliminary discussions for the 65th edition to remain in Rotterdam for 2021 began, and it was eventually confirmed (in the Europe Shine A Light special) that Rotterdam would indeed host the 2021 Contest. Many participating nations confirmed their intention to keep the artists they'd chosen for 2020 in the following months, with the proviso that they would need to select new songs in accordance with ESC rules. Some of the countries that use national selections to pick their acts invited the incumbent winners back for 2021, while others (namely Italy and Sweden) went ahead with their finals as planned, though many of the representatives that were chosen for 2020 through this system were invited to compete again for re-entry.

There have been a handful of Eurovision spinoffs over the years, most notably including the Junior Eurovision Song Contest (which has been held every autumn since 2003) and the short-lived Eurovision Dance Contest. There have also been attempts at launching foreign versions of the contest, such as an Asian edition that was set to debut in 2018 but got stuck in Development Hell before being cancelled in 2021. The long-teased American version of Eurovision —titled the American Song Contest— eventually debuted its first (and to date, only) edition in 2022 on NBC, with inaugural participation from all fifty states as well as Washington, D.C. and five US territories note . Additional spinoffs in Canada and Latin America were also announced in 2022, but neither has gone beyond the development phase since then. Eurovision was previously first broadcast in the United States from 2016 to 2018 on the LGBT-focused cable network LOGO, before Netflix acquired the US streaming rights for the 2019 and 2020 editions.note  Likely in conjunction with the official announcement of ASC, Peacock then became the new American streaming home of Eurovision starting with the 2021 edition.note 

In March 2019, it was announced that a proposed Eurovision film from Will Ferrell and director David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers) was moving forward at Netflix, coinciding with their planned two-year streaming deal in the US. Ferrell, a longtime Eurovision fan himself, previously claimed to have seen every contest since 1999 (when his Swedish wife introduced him to it) and even attended the 2018 competition in Lisbon as preparation for the film. After a brief release date change because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga was finally released in June 2020. The plot of the film follows unlikely Icelandic duo Fire Saga (Ferrell and Rachel McAdams) as they beat the odds to represent their country at Eurovision. Shot partly on location during the 2019 edition in Tel Aviv, the film also features Pierce Brosnan, Dan Stevens, and Demi Lovato in supporting roles, as well as plentiful cameo appearances from previous Eurovision acts.note  Although reactions to the film trended mixed-to-positive among fans, the soundtrack was widely praised and even received a Grammy nomination, with "Husavik" (as performed by Molly Sandén) specifically being nominated Best Original Song at the Oscars.

An index of notable Eurovision acts can be found here.

For parodies of the contest, see Inept Talent Show Contestant.

See also the Wikipedia article.

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    Eurovision tropes 
  • Artifact Title: The participation of non-really-European nations Israel, Australia, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan made the title arguably inaccurate, although "Eurovision" technically refers to nations in which Eurovision television broadcasting is shown, which includes all of the nations in the competition except the UKnote .
    • 1980 saw an African country, Morocco, take part for the first (and only) time.
  • Bilingual Bonus:
    • The contest is presented in English and French, the two official languages of the EBU. In earlier editions, the hosts would say everything in English, French (and the host country's language if not already included). As of the mid to late '90s, the hosts mainly speak English throughout the shows and the only things delivered in French are the spiels on how to vote and the countries' names and points during the qualification and voting sequences.
    • Often, a country will send a bilingual song as their entry, usually in English and their own national language.
  • Foreign Language Title: Some entries, while not really bilingual songs, include a repeated word or two in a foreign language which becomes the title (like Cyprus 2018 "Fuego", or Serbia 2020 "Hasta la vista", Spanish-language titles in an English and Serbian song respectively). Others, like Belarus 2017 "Story of My Life", have the original title translated into English but the song remaining otherwise untouched.
  • Interval Act: While the panels were deliberating or the phone votes are coming in, an interval act is arranged. Audiences used not to pay much heed to these musicians, dancers, comedians, or prerecorded videos — that is, until in 1994 the Irish hosts gave the world "Riverdance" and launched Michael Flatley's career.
    • 2010 had a performance by Madcon, accompanied by live and pre-taped flash mobs across several locations.
    • 2011 had a performance by Jan Delay.
    • 2012 featured local artist Emin Agalarov. The second semi-final featured an all-star performance with 5 recent winners.
    • 2013 had Sweden taking the utter piss out of itself.
    • 2014 had a bizarre performance featuring old men on giant ladders sing a rendition of "Ode to Joy," followed by the 3 hosts singing a song about Douze Points. It was actually the remnants of a longer interval act titled "Trip to the Future," in which the audience takes a peak at Eurovision 20 Minutes into the Future. Instead, it was cut down and additionally featured last year's winner singing her winning song and a new anthem that included all of the finalists on stage.
    • 2016 straight up plopped Justin Timberlake onto the stage as the interval act. As an American, he looked slightly perplexed by the whole atmosphere, but gave it his best nonetheless. An American performer was chosen to commemorate the contest being broadcast in the United States for the first time, even if his performance couldn't actually be shown on TV there due to some licensing problems. This was lampshaded by one of the US commentators, who told American viewers to just watch it on YouTube.
    • 2016's second interval was a completely meta-song that arguably became the most popular perfomance of the night if social media is to be believed. It was called "Love Love, Peace Peace" and mocked the Strictly Formula tradition of Eurovision acts that consisted of, oh, just about all of the points below. It was performed by the hosts and featured gratuitous Self Deprecating Humour, Stripperiffic costumes, and cameo from just about all the memorable artists or references to those artists from the past 10 years, including Lordi, Alexander Rybak, Loreen, the Russian Grannies and the Polish milkmaids.
    • 2017 saw a left field electronic folk act, a bizarre song from Ruslana, and a Jamala performance (accidentally featuring a notorious local streaker brandishing an Aussie flag and mooning her).
    • Madonna performed in 2019, in spite of the controversies that have abounded since she was first rumored for the gig (aside from the flak acts can receive from performing in Israel in general, also controversies about the content of her songs, and that the broadcaster was not paying for it, as well as the size of her entourage, and the claims it would be unfair on the competing acts, though the most famous of them, Finland's Darude (who ended up placing last in his heat), defended her expected performance, saying it boosts the brand). Also, it had a magician, a TV spot with Gal Gadot, and Conchita, Foureira, Måns, and, despite Ukraine's controversial withdrawal, Verka Serduchka, swapping each other's songs.
      • Madonna's actual performance in the interval act, though ... let's just say, even the national commentators struggled to mince their words. Her performance of her classic song "Like a Prayer" was widely seen as (although YMMV) kinda cringeworthy.
    • 2021's involved performances from 7 ex winners (not all of whom were scheduled for the one that would have been done in 2020's, which also would have had 7 past victors), though Duncan Laurence contracted COVID and had his performance prerecorded.
    • 2022 saw performances from Måneskin, 1964's winner Gigliola Cinquetti and cohost Mika.
    • 2023's interval started with Sam Ryder performing his new single "Mountain" with Roger Taylor of Queen, and was followed by "The Liverpool Songbook", six former Eurovision entrants performing their own versions of songs from Liverpudlian acts: Mahmood singing John Lennon's "Imagine", Netta singing Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)", Daði Freyr singing Atomic Kitten's "Whole Again", Cornelia Jacobs singing Melanie C's "I Turn To You", Sonia reprising her Eurovision entry from 1993 "Better The Devil You Know" and finished with all of the previously listed acts, the hosts, Ruslana via satellite in Kyiv and Duncan Laurence singing Liverpool FC's anthem "You'll Never Walk Alone".
  • Predictable Voting: Especially since the 90's, there has been a tendency for nations to give their highest points to their neighboring countries. It is a matter of debate whether it is primarily explained by conscious political alliances or by a tendency for culturally close countries to have similar musical tastes. Here are a few such examples:
    • A common Eurovision joke is that There are only three things certain in life: Death, Taxes, and Greece and Cyprus exchanging maximum votes at Eurovision -- provided they are able to vote for each other.note 
      • Became a Crowning Moment of Funny in 2019 — both when Greece as well as when Cyprus were about to announce which country would get their maximum points, the audience in Tel Aviv already audibly yelled "Cyprus!" and "Greece!" respectively in the background. And they were right both times.
    • The Scandinavian and Eastern European blocs all vote for their fellow bloc countries. The Eastern European phenomenon has given rise to a popular joke: "The West may have won the Cold War, but the East won Eurovision."
      • The Nordic countries have a tendency to either play this very straight or go in the complete opposite direction. At least a handful of Nordic winners received top scores from all the other Nordic countries (both of Sweden's most recent winners before 2023 and Finland's Lordi received top scores from every other Nordic country), but 2019 saw them mostly avert it. Jury-wise, while Sweden, as ever, was the grand overlap (Finland, Denmark, and Iceland all gave it 12 points, while Norway gave it 10), the other three qualified Nordics received mixed scores. Sweden and Denmark voted for Norway while the other two ignored it, Denmark only received points from Norway, and Iceland didn't get any points at all from the other Nordic nations. Non-Nordic countries were actually kinder to the latter three, with Italy going so far as to give Denmark 12 points!
    • While folks can’t vote for the country they presently live in, that doesn’t stop emigrants from voting for the countries they originated from, especially in regards to Eastern Europeans that moved to Western European nations whose natives have seemed to have stopped taking the contest seriously. For instance, because of the large diaspora of Turkish immigrants, Germany and the Netherlands have had a tendency to be giving their 12 points to Turkey, while Ireland has been giving high marks to the Baltics and Poland, due to the high dispora of immigrants from those regions. The United Kingdom tends to give high points to Irelandnote , Poland and Australia for similar reasons, whilst France voted for Turkey, and votes for Armenia, Israel, Portugal and sometimes Serbia, for the same reason.
    • Sure, there's issues between most countries in the Balkan region and amongst the former Soviet countries since their respective breakups, but the one time they can count on one another is when they need Eurovision votes.
    • Ireland usually gets a high vote from the UK, helped by the many Irish in Britain and the fact that Northern Ireland is part of the UK. In return Irish almost always give a few points to the UK, though generally fewer than the other way around. In spite of this, there have only been two instances in which Ireland has awarded the UK maximum points: in 1966 (they finished ninth; the fact that the UK representative was Scottish and wearing a kilt probably helped) and in 1997 (which helped the UK win; in turn, they awarded Ireland their only 12 points of the evening, allowing them to finish second). Nations with large diasporas in Ireland (Scandinavians or Baltic states) receive the 12 instead.
      • The 2013 Eurovision averted this trope. Ireland gave the UK 7 points, while they gave Ireland 1 point. The Irish were not even slightly happy.
      • Another notable exception: in 1996, Ireland earned their seventh victory. They awarded the UK three points, but in an unusual move (especially considering how well-received the Irish entry was), the UK gave Ireland no points at all. It's especially odd when you see that they awarded Ireland 12 points in the pre-qualifying round. (Odder still, the actual recipient of the UK's 12 points in the final, Cyprus, only received two points from them in the pre-qualifying round. However, this can be explained by the jurors for the qualifying round not being allowed to vote in the final.)
    • Malta normally gives twelve to the UK, and in 2007 admitted they fixed their results as a protest against bloc voting.
      • Yes and no: Malta can sometimes be very generous, but they can also be very fickle. A failure to award the UK any points in 1993 cost them victory, and in the victorious year of 1997 they only gave the UK one point (their lowest mark of the evening). On the other hand, their twelve jury points in 2016 was the first time any country had given the UK top marks since 2011 and their public's 12 in 2022 was one of the few that didn't go to Ukraine.
    • Spain and Portugal usually interchange high votes and, since Andorra's first appearance, both countries receive the highest votes from this little principate. France also got high points from Andorra, but didn't give any in return.
    • This problem seems to have finally been ended with the 50/50 split of votes (a professional jury counts for 50% and the popular vote counts for 50%) in 2010. In 2016, the voting formula was changed to explicitly count televotes separately from the jury votes in point totals, rather than use an aggregate to determine the points awarded (similarly to the Swedish final, the televote results were revealed song-by-song following the jury votes, which were presented in the traditional country-by-country fashion).
      • You still can check if you know the border countries of the one giving the votes by saying who gets the maximum votes.
      • In fact the late Spanish long-time commentator José Luís Uribarri became famous for announcing the votes from each country before the jury actually told the results (and he got them right most of the time). People enjoyed it especially when he failed. This is one of the main reasons Spaniards don't take the contest seriously anymore.
    • Another pair of countries that exchange maximum votes predictably has arisen in recent years: Turkey and Azerbaijan. Similar to Greece and Cyprus, this is in large part due to the cultural connection between the two.
    • Israel, when they do vote, give the UK and Turkey points. Moldova and Ukraine are your next bets; in fact, you could say everywhere but Germany (though they have actually voted for Germany a few times, though not a lot, and received their first 12 in 11 years from the German jury in 2016. They also gave 12 to Austria with Conchita.)
      • German winner Nicole was actually quite moved that one of the 12 points that led her to victory came from Israel, given their history (Germany, in turn, rewarded their representative Avi Toledano with 12 points as well).
    • On the flip side of this, there are also countries who won't give each other the time of day, much less points at Eurovision. The classical example is Greece/Turkey; another that has arisen in recent years is Armenia/Azerbaijannote  (although, rather surprisingly given the history of the two countries, Turkey and Armenia are not averse to giving each other a few points).
      • Considering their reputation as not voting for each other, Greece and Turkey have given surprisingly many points to each other over the years. Turkey and Cyprus on the other hand, have only given points to each other in 2 occasions, in 2003 and in 2004.
      • Since the '90s this has been the case for the UK with nearly everywhere else, rarely getting many points from most other countries, usually put down to both the physical and cultural distance (votes for Ireland are presumably given because it's explicitly not the UK). It's a good game to see how long the UK can spend on the left side of the board (if it even gets there). After 2016... well, it's not like the UK hasn't suffered getting nil points before — Brits are satisfied as long as they place higher than Germany. (A country that also, notably, gets very few votes. Likely for thatnote  as well as being perceived as the greatest power in Europe somewhat alienating the rest of the continent.)
    • Averted quite a bit in 2017, with many countries giving their twelve points to Portugal when they would otherwise have given them to Russia or their neighbours.
  • Over-enthusiastic Sidekicks: Finland's "Eurovision's biggest fan" took the proverbial biscuit. Serbia had some ridiculous woman in a square in Belgrade (this was during an ad break as filler for countries where it is shown on commercial-free channels, like the BBC) and some woman who looked like Avril Lavigne in "The Green Room".
    • For the record, the said "biggest fan" was a comedy actress whose thing is to play a hyper naïve, simple-minded blonde with pieces of sharp sarcasm.
    • During the voting in 2006, the Netherlands' spokesperson Paul de Leeuw seemed to ignore the live element of the show, unsubtly hitting on the male host and giving out his mobile number on live TV before proceeding to name the country awarded 12 points. Terry Wogan called him an "eejit" in his commentary. invoked
  • Terry Wogan: For viewers in the UK (and many in Ireland and some other European countries, where British TV channels are commonly available), an integral part of the experience was the dry, acerbic commentary by veteran radio presenter Sir Terry Wogan who openly mocked the hosts, the costumes, the songs, the Tourist Office Inserts, the Interval Act. He generally seemed to spend the contest getting progressively more squiffy on Bailey's, so tends to become more and more entertaining as the evening draws on. The worse the contest, the quicker it happens. He was once banned from Denmark for referring to their hosts as "Doctor Death and the Tooth Fairy". Commentated the show in 1978 and from 1980 to 2008, where he left due to being unhappy with the political voting and the UK's lack of effort. He has since been replaced by Graham Norton, another sardonic Irishman.
    • Notable for Misplaced Nationalism — he blamed the failure of the United Kingdom's Hollywood Tone-Deaf entry in the 2003 contest on backlash from the Iraq War, in spite of the fact many nations that were seen as being on its side in the intervention fared better, including winner Turkey.
  • Truck Driver's Gear Change: The definitive recurring element in entries, the last chorus of a song often cranks up a key or two. Why? Because they can. A noteable aversion occurred in 2023 where none of the entries featured such a key change. This is often combined with any of the following:
  • Bilingual Lyrics: Even if you start singing in your native Bulgarian or Hebrew, switching into English for the final chorus (or for every chorus) will guarantee international appeal. Also known as Gratuitous English. Compare International Pop Song English.
    • Averted for most of Eurovision's history (from 1958 to 1972 and from 1977 to 1998) because each song had to be sung in the country's language. The winners would often, however, reprise their songs with a Switch Into English. This trope was played most spectacularly by Nicole's Ein bißchen Frieden for Germany in 1982 when she sang in German, French, English, and Dutch, eliciting an applause at each switch.
    • Israel's entries have a weird on-off kind of thing for this. Boaz Mauda's entry, "HaEsh B'Einaiyich" was half-Hebrew, half-English and placed 9th. Shiri Maimon's "Hasheket Shenish'ar" did that, too and it nearly won. David D'Or's "Leha'amin", though, didn't even make the finals. Izabo's "Time" also has a language switch, switching from English to Hebrew in the chorus rather than the verse.
    • The "native-language-only" policy was cancelled in 1998 because of a massive streak of winners that were either in English (Ireland winning in 1992, '93, '94 and '96, plus a United Kingdom victory in 1997, with Ireland finishing second) or had as little text as remotely possible (Norway in 1995). Since then, only four winners were not sung in English at all: 2007's "Molitva" from Serbia, 2017's "Amar Pelos Dois" from Portugal, 2021's "Zitti e buoni" from Italy and 2022's "Stefania" from Ukraine (their first solely in Ukrainian — their other two winners were bilingual).
    • Played disappointingly straight in 2011, where the grand majority of songs were partially or completely in English. 2011 was also notable for being the first time that nobody sang in French (save for one sentence in the chorus of Evelina Sašenko's entry for Lithuania, "C'est ma vie", the rest of which was in English). This is even stranger considering not only was it the Lithuanian entry that used bits of French, but to top it off she's actually ethnically Polish. Even the French entry, Amaury Vassili's "Sognu," was in Corsican rather than French.
    • A similar incident occurred in the 2015 contest as well. Of 40 participating countries, only 7 entries (Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Montenegro, Finland, and Romania) include lyrics in a language other than English. Serbia's "Beauty Never Lies" was their first English-language entry since debuting as an independent entity. Most notably, Israel, whose broadcaster used to require at least half of the lyrics of their entries be in Hebrew, sent an entirely English song in light of their poor qualification record in recent years (and not too surprisingly made it to the final). When Romanian representatives Voltaj toyed with the idea of sending their song "De la capăt" in English (they performed entirely in Romanian in the national final), the backlash was so great they instead opted for a bilingual version and the song was renamed "De la capăt (All Over Again)".
    • And again in 2016: out of 43 acts, only 8 entries (France, Italy, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Austria, Greece, and Ukraine) feature non-English lyrics. Most notably, Austria's song is entirely in French. Spain sent their first ever entry entirely in English, which was very out of character for the country.
    • For 2017: France (with English parts in the chorus), Spain (with an English chorus), Hungary, Portugal, and, in a break with tradition, Belarus (leaving Azerbaijan the sole nation to have never used a national language, briefly touched upon in a multilingual Bulgarian entry when ESC was in Baku in 2012). Croatia sang in English and Italian in a duet for one. All 7 songs were in the final. Indeed, Portugal won in style, an ace achievement for a nation whose loyalty to its language and styles had hitherto been its undoing, but now made it a winner.
    • In 2018, more nations sang in own languages, including Georgia and Armenia singing entirely in their languages for the first time ever (previously only used very little, if at all, in English language songs), Serbia, Albania, Greece, Hungary, Slovenia and Montenegro, as well as the usual French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian suspects. In the semi-finals, Armenia, Greece, Georgia and Montenegro crashed but Albania, Hungary, Serbia and Slovenia (and the well liked Italian language Estonian song) did not.
    • 2019 saw Iceland, Georgia, Albania, Hungary, Poland, Serbia, Slovenia, Portugal, Spain, France, and Italy sing own language entries, while Arabic, Turkish, Danish (alongside German, the first serious entry to use it since 2007, and French) and even Northern Sami and Abkhaz were used in the songs of Italy, San Marino, Denmark, Norway and Georgia respectively. Of these, Albania, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Slovenia and Serbia made it to the final (as well as automatic qualifiers France, Italy and Spain).
    • In 2020, as well as the usual suspects of Francenote , Italy, Spain and Portugal, Belarus, Croatia, Slovenia and Ukraine would have performed in their own language, whilst Spanish appeared in Georgia's, Russia's, and Serbia's entries (Georgia's entry would also use French, German and Italian, and Serbia's would use English, but was mostly in Serbian). Israel's entry appeared in Amharic, Arabic, English and Hebrew. The oddest one, though, would be Azerbaijan's entry, which would have had Japanese alongside English.
    • 2021: Songs sang exclusively in the native language were from France, Italy, Spain, Ukraine, Albania, and in a break with the norm, Denmark (in another break with tradition, this did NOT include Portugal, whose song “Love Is On My Side” did not feature any Portuguese), predominately own-language material from Russia and Serbia, and songs from Azerbaijan (for the first time ever), Czech Republic, Germany (both for the first time since 2007) and Israel featuring a line or 2 in the native language, whilst the host nation’s singer, who was born in Suriname, sings the chorus of his song in the Sranan Tongo language spoken there.
    • 2022: Lithuania have their first own-language song since 1999 (save for 2 lines at the end of 2018's), Netherlands their second since 1998 in the main contest, and Iceland their third since 1997. In a surprise repeat of 2011, and in spite of 2 French language songs in the top 3 the previous year, there is no song in French in Torino — France's selection was won by a song in a regional language (Breton, a Celtic language, for the first time since 1996). Ukraine’s sending of an own-language entry for the 2nd successive act (both of whom shared a flautist) was key to their mandate for victory, whilst Italy and Slovenia were the only other songs put forward that were exclusively in a non-English native language, but Albania, Cyprus, Moldova, Portugal, San Marino and Spain have songs with lyrics in the native language and in English (and some in Spanish too for Albania), and Serbia uses Latin alongside their native language.
    • 2023: Other than the usual suspects of France, Italy and Spain, Portugal return to singing in their own language, and are joined by Albania, Croatia, Finland, Moldova and Slovenia. Armenia, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine have bilingual songs (their own language and English), while Norway's entry was trilingual (the intro to the song is mostly Italian which ends with a Latin phrase, and the rest of the song is entirely in English). In an impressive show, Czechianote  are singing in Bulgarian, Czech, English and Ukrainian. Among the songs predominantly in English, some lyrics feature trace amounts of other languages (Israel, Latvia, Lithuania in their native languages and Austria in Italian).
  • Stock Rhymes: It comes with the Gratuitous English. Many lyricists who speak English as a second language (or not even at all) choose stock rhyming words (or don't even bother with rhyming at all!). The worst offending couplet comes from Sweden’s entry in 2011, which rhymed "impossible" with "possible". Not to be outdone, Serbia’s entry in 2017 contained three lines, which rhymed "deep" with itself. Twice.note 
  • Intentional Costume Malfunction: Ever since Bucks Fizz won the contest in 1981 with a dance routine involving the boys ripping off the girls' skirts to reveal that their blouses were in fact really short dresses, the on-stage striptease has become a standard ingredient (4 out of 25 finalists in 2008, plus Serbia's show opener).
    • t.A.T.u. threatened to go all the way in 2003. They didn't ultimately, sang badly and Turkey won. This was the (first) year where the UK ended up with no points whatsoever.
    • While not a striptease per se, Germany tried to get the male vote in 2009 by including burlesque model Dita Von Teese. The baffling part of all this was that two-thirds of the way into the performance, they stop to announce her ("Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Dita Von Teese!"), even though she was already on the stage and had been stripping throughout the song. And after that she just poses a bit. Ultimately, it didn't work, and they finished twentieth out of twenty-five.
    • In 1985, the Swedish host Lill Lindfors lost her skirt when it snagged on some scenery. This was quickly revealed as intentional when she unfastened part of her top to make a dress. This routine had been kept secret and was a surprise even to most of the crew (a man was placed in the mixing room to make sure the camera stayed on Lill). It led to the addition of a rule that the aired show cannot contain elements that haven't been a part of rehearsals beforehand.note 
  • Questionable Choreography
  • Wind Machines. Lots of them.
  • Flashing Strobe Lights. It is common for the television broadcasters' commentators to give a verbal and a written warning before the act. Special mention to Georgia 2016, which took this trope up to eleven.

And now, some examples of tropes as seen in the Eurovision Song Contest / Et maintenant, quelques exemples des tropes vus dans le concours Eurovision de la chanson:

    A-C 
  • Action Girl: Every now and then, but the clearest example is Ukraine's Ruslana, winner of Istanbul 2004.
  • Affectionate Parody:
    • Swedish Eurodance performer Markoolio wrote a parody of typical Eurovision music, "Värsta Schlagern".note . And of course, it lampshades all the clichés. The third verse? Translated into English it goes: "Now it gets difficult to figure out/ something new to say, but so what?/ This is just padding/ which people will soon forget about." He actually tried to enter it with a different singer into Melodifestivalen, the Swedish national final, but was turned down.
    • In 2009, Markoolio got into Melodifestivalen as a wild card with "Kärlekssång från mig", a follow-up in the form of a power ballad. The live performance featured a stage show parodying Dima Bilan's performances, with a Funny Background Event involving a man emerging from the piano, who tries to ice skate, almost gets hit in the face by a violinist, and then gets set on fire by the pyrotechnics.
    • Sweden seem to be making a habit of this— one of the interval acts from 2016 was "Love Love Peace Peace", a Troperrific exploration of the most common themes from past Eurovision hits. And then there was "The Nerd Nation", a Mockumentary poking fun at Sweden itself for its obsession with Eurovision. There's also Melodifestivalen 2013's "En Riktig Jävla Schlager", once again playing on the Schlager trope, featuring amongst others Tommy Körberg of Chess fame.
  • All Issues Are Political Issues: Usually averted. On paper, Eurovision was meant to be an apolitical, borderless celebration of diversity and harmony; in fact, explicitly political entries are banned. In practice, there have been times when the contest becomes politically charged, reflecting current events.
    • To list all the barely-implicitly political songs would be nearly impossible — they go from the extreme: in 2016 the winning song was written by a Crimean from Ukraine, called "1944" (the year the Soviets deported the Crimean Tatars), being overtly political in itself, before adding the context that the 2016 contest was held around the time of the Russian-Ukrainian Crimean conflict and both countries perceived voting as politically motivated. In the future everything became worse, as Ukraine openly interpreted its victory as "recognition of its rightness in a political dispute with Russia," and their dispute over a Russian participant next year turned into a major diplomatic scandal. Worse still, in 2019, during the Ukrainian selection, Jamala openly asked national final favourite MARUV, who regularly performs in Russia, "Crimea is Ukraine?" (Sic). The broadcaster then presented MARUV with a contract that included a clause barring her from performing in Russia for several months, which she after some deliberation chose not to sign, and the other participants followed suit in order not be dragged into the whole mess, resulting in no Ukrainian ESC entry in 2019.
    • The UK's 2017 entry was "Never Give Up On You", which is definitely not implying that, even in the wake of Brexit and reaffirming the Special Relationship with Trump's America, the UK populace wants to maintain a relationship with Europe. Furthermore, the song is written, not just by an EU writer, but by Denmark's 2013 winner Emmelie De Forrest.
      • Songs in the UK Selection that January, coincidentally held on the same day as the White House meeting of the UK PM Theresa May and US President Donald Trump, included a song called "I Wish I Loved You More" written by a Swede, and a song by a singer with Italian lineage called "I don't wanna fight". There was also the somewhat apologetic "we're on the same side, we're 'freedom hearts'", written by the Swede who wrote "A Million Voices" two years earlier.
      • The UK hosted 20 acts partaking in ESC 2017 (including some from non-EU countries, but a majority from the union), the weekend after A50 was triggered (again this was a coincidence). Lucie duetted with Spain's singer in that gig — earlier that day, a former U.K. Opposition leader made a controversial remark about the Gibraltar dispute. Spain however was the only non-anglophonic nation to give UK televote points, although EU duo Malta and Ireland also gave Lucie a consistent level of televoting points little changed from recent contests (though not jury points — she made a lighthearted and apolitical joke attack about it on Twitter, saying "ooh Ireland — it burns!", and was mocked by Irish fans for it, but she still got 99 jury points, throughout the EU (including Germany, France, and Poland) and beyond, and placed 15th). The televoting points for UK still cleared those of six other nations, including Germany, Spain, Israel and Austria, as well as Australia and Denmark.
      • One government councillor didn't take the lack of Irish jury vote as well as Lucie did,and tweeted something much more offensive and was suspended by the Tory party.
      • The UK's 2016 submission, when the Brexit referendum was on the horizon, had the hook "As long as I'm with you" and started the chorus with "we're all in this together" (a catchphrase of then Prime Minister David Cameron).
      • The next year, they were more of an outsider, but told us "Storms don't last forever" in a period where the referendum was underpinned by an indecisive election and unprecedented political paralysis.
      • The next U.K. Song was called "Bigger than Us" and selected ahead of one called "Sweet Lies". "Bigger than Us" made history as the first ever entry whose writer represented another country as a singer in the same year, Swedish entry John Lundvik (UK born). Furthermore, 2015 winner Måns Zelmerlöw has made several jokes mocking the political crisis when presenting UK's selections in 2018 and 2019. However, only Ireland gave the song any televotes in the final despite the fact that, whilst no one (or very few) was expecting him to prevent the UK from ending the decade without a top 10 entry, he was given praise by former winner Måns Zelmerlöw, who presented his selection, and his fellow contestants (many of which he befriended on Insta Q&As) including champion elect Duncan Laurence from the Netherlands, though he later gave the song constructive criticism after it placed last, based on the manner of its selection (pairs of acts singing different versions of a song, which was scrapped the following year) which likely meant it lacked the authenticity of Arcade, part of a top 10 of mostly self-written songs. (The hypothesis of the Brexit debacle and impasse causing the last place was undermined by the fact that Ireland had almost the exact same fortunes in their heat, with no televoting points outside UK, and, in the final, Germany got none at all, when surely those who mock the political debacle sympathise with Ireland and Germany note )
      • In spite of sending a song which had got a relatively reasonable reception, and was constructively treated for being upbeat, contemporary and self written, and faring reasonably with juries on some preview events and fan sites (though few called it an outright favourite, a fatal flaw given you vote for your faves, not against your least favourite, and a very clunky stage show which had unnecessary prop trumpets, with very poor rehearsals with constant changes as it went along, and vocal performances which took too long to convince, put off jurors and voters that could have voted for it), UK suffered an even worse version of this fate in 2021, failing to score in either medium, though Germany, Spain and even the Dutch hosts also got NO Televoting points at all, and the quartet got just 20 combined jury votes (and Belgium, who fared much better with the jury, got only 3 televotes, all from Eastern European nations nowhere near them). Ireland had earlier bottomed out 16-song heat 1 (with points).
    • Verka Serduchka's "Dancing Lasha Tumbai". Verka claimed lasha tumbai is a Mongolian phrase meaning 'churned butter' or 'whipped cream', but it's actually gibberish. Gibberish that may just sound suspiciously similar to "Russia, goodbye!"...
    • Interpreting "Next Year in Jerusalem" as said by Netta when celebrating her win, and on instas of singers and celebs congratulating her win, as a claim on Jerusalem (host in 1979 and 1999) as the capital, which risked causing outrage and made it all-but-untenable as a host venue, though Netta herself didn't care about this, and had no qualms about Tel Aviv hosting instead, which was seen as a more appropriate venue by fans, for harnessing ESC's LGBT aspect rather than being febrile, and preventing a diplomatic boycott that had been risked in some northern countries such as Iceland (1999's runners up) and Ireland.
      • The divisions regarding the Icelandic act for this iteration Hatari's anti capitalist message and wrestling match jokes. On the live broadcast, during the awarding of the public votes, they went so far as to hold up the Palestinian flag.
    • Although distracting a bit from the fact that Ukraine's 2022 act was genuinely great, there was absolutely no way that they could not have won in 2022 following its invasion by Russia, and the enormous outpouring of international sympathy that resulted.
  • Always Second Best: The United Kingdom, ending up in second place sixteen times between 1959 and 2022.
    • During their stay in the contest, Russia gained a reputation as "the contestant most likely to finish second". Their only win came in 2008, while they came in second four times between 2000 and 2015 — twice losing out only to contest juggernauts Sweden.
  • Ambiguous Gender:
    • Serbia's entries in 2007 and 2010, Ukraine's Verka Serduchka for Helsinki 2007, Austria's Conchita Wurst for Copenhagen 2014, France's Bilal Hassani in 2019.
    • Montenegro's Slavko Kalezic in 2017 with the homoerotic Space. Kalezic wears a skirt and a see through mesh top.
  • Anonymous Band: Two of these entered the 2022 contest:
    • Norwegian duo Subwoolfer, whose members perform in yellow wolf masks, go by the aliases "Keith" and "Jim", and who finished 10th in the Grand Final. The duo would eventually confirm that they were Ben Adams and Gaute Ormåsen (which was the most popular theory about their identitites) while performing at Melodi Grand Prix 2023 (Norway's national final).
    • Georgian band Circus Mircus, who didn't make it out of their semi final. While it's widely speculated that Nika Kocharov & Young Georgian Lolitaz, who already competed for Georgia back in 2016, could be the driving force behind Circus Mircus, their manifesto emphasises repeatedly that the band members' individual identities are not relevant to its work:
      2. Your identity does not matter as long as you are a part of Circus Mircus, for no one person can take credit for the movement’s work.
      5. Ask 'WHY', not 'WHO'.
      6. Honor the golden rule of anonymity.
  • Arch-Enemy: Despite the EBU's best efforts to keep politics out of Eurovision, conflicts between participating countries end up bleeding into the contest more often than not.
    • Armenia failed to make the finals in 2011 while rivals Azerbaijan won the contest. The next year, Armenia pulled out of the contest in Baku, partly in protest of ceasefire violations in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, partly because of the strong possibility that whatever performer it sent to Azerbaijan would be in great danger.
    • After making their Eurovision debut in 1974, Greece sat out the 1975 contest, in which Turkey competed for the first time, in protest over the Turkish invasion of Cyprus on July 1974. Cyprus started competing in Eurovision in 1981, and Turkey and them would never give each other a single point until 2004.
    • A country that doesn't make it to the finals will usually feel better about it if their rival doesn't make it either.
    • Many nations of the Arab World are indeed eligible to participate in Eurovision, but are unable to or will not participate due to Arab–Israeli Conflict. In fact, Lebanon had attempted to participate in 2005, but were disqualified when they intended not to broadcast the Israeli entry. Morocco did however participate once in 1980, when Israel took a year off.
    • The UK and Germany, who from the mid-2000s rarely saw the left side of the board, are usually happy with their position as long as they beat the other nation. Most commonly, the UK does beat Germany (not always, though). In 2019, 2021 and 2023, both were bottom 2 with abysmal scores, particularly in televoting, with only a single point from Romanian juries and 2 from Austrian juries for Jendrik the only points occurred between the pair in 2021, out of 760 possible top 10 places that would give them points.
  • Arc Number: Russia has had several entries which have a variation of "one" in its name: "Solo" in 2000, "Nobody Hurt No One" in 2005, "Song #1" in 2007, "You Are The Only One" in 2016 and "Uno" in ultimately cancelled 2020.note  And for their 2003 performance, both members of t.A.T.u. had a big 1 on their tops (although this could be a reference to performing 11th).
  • Ascended Fanboy: Australia have been known to be dedicated fans of the contest and have broadcast it since 1983. So, in celebration of the contest's 60th anniversary in 2015, they were given a slot at the Grand Final and came in at a respectable 5th place. Because of that, Australia got to compete for real in the 2016 contest and came in second at the Grand Final, leading to speculation on whether or not they get to be a permanent participant. The EBU and SBS (the Australian broadcaster) eventually made a deal for the country to return each year until 2023. Should Australia win the contest would not take place in the country, but SBS would be allowed to co-host with a European city (similar to the arrangement between Ukraine and the UK in 2023).
  • Audience Participation: 2010 Eurovision's Flash Mob.
  • Award-Bait Song: Occasionally you get a power ballad that sounds like it could easily play over the intro of a James Bond movie.
  • Balkanize Me: Perhaps due to the voting blocs spawned by the breakups of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, as well as the lack of effort of the United Kingdom in the 21st century as a united nation, there have been calls for the UK to split themselves up into separate nations much like they do in most sports, and make their own voting block with Ireland, which could happen if Scotland declares independence. Wales in particular even have gone as far as creating a national contest show long in advance dating back to 1969 in preparation if the split up were to happen. Of course if it did happen, it would pose several problems:
    • Since much of the UK's economic power comes from England, they would be the only nation that could possibly keep their "Big 5" status, meaning that Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland would most likely have to compete in the semifinals much like Ireland does. Then of course, there's the financial issues that would come with hosting if one of these nations were to win, especially since they wouldn't have the full financial support of the UK anymore.
    • There's The Irish Question of whether Northern Ireland should join up with Ireland like in Rugby Football or compete separately as they do in association football.
    • Finally the voting bloc these nations would have could easily backfire as not only would they have to compete against one another, there could be vendettas between these nations as along with the issue of nationality, the fact they had to resort to doing this because of the lack of effort back when they participated as a united nation. That said, the spawned rivalries could lead to these nations sending a better quality of entrants as a result, pending they start taking the contest seriously again.
      • Wales took part in the ESC for choirs on its own with the S4C Welsh broadcaster — the bizarre EBU event taking place in Latvia in the summer was advertised in the ESC 2017 — and finished second. The Welsh later partook in the junior contest in 2018, but placed last, having got no points from jurors, although with a passable public score, placing 2nd last the following year after being last with online votes, and withdrawing from the next 2 editions due to COVID. The EBU says they partake alone or the UK partakes, but both cannot occur at once. The U.K. returned as a United entity to this level in 2022, and placed 5th, winning the online vote, heavily damaging the possibility of Wales ever making a solo return to it. Wales would later return to choir contest in 2019, with Scotland joining them.
  • Ban on Politics: Political content on the songs' lyrics is forbidden. In 2009, when the contest was set to be held in Moscow, Georgia was caught attempting to enter a song titled "We Don't Wanna Put In" in the wake of the Russo-Georgian armed conflict, and was promptly disqualified.
  • Belly Dancer: Turkey often combines this with a Regional Riff. This was codified by Sertab Erener, who brought the country their first and currently only victory in 2003 with a performance that included a full belly dancing routine.
  • Big Beautiful Woman:
    • Serbia's 2015 entry, Bojana Stamenov, who sang "Beauty Never Lies", an anthem of self-acceptance.
    • Netta Barzilai, Israel's 2018 representative and that year's winner.
  • Blatant Lies: In 1978, several Middle Eastern countries broadcast the Contest live. When it became clear Israel were going to win, the broadcast was ended early, with Jordanian television stating that Belgium (which finished 32 points behind Israel) had won.
  • Blonde, Brunette, Redhead:
    • Me Ka Do, German representative in 1994, consists of brunette Melanie Bender, blonde Kati Karney and "redhead" (more lighter brown) Dorkas Kiefer.
    • Three of the backing singers for Denmark in 2000 were made up of this combination.
    • The members of Hurricane for Serbia in 2020 and 2021 were also made up of this combination.
    • The sisters representing Iceland in 2022 were also made up of this combination.
  • Bookends: The 2023 final begins and ends with lyrics about songwriting. Austria starts the competition with "Oh my God, you're such a good writer", while the UK closes it with "Instead I wrote a song".
  • Bowdlerize: The EBU's rules do not allow profanity during competitive performances. This ruling applies to both lyrical content and the staging. Entrants are required to alter their lyrics to remove cursing and change their choreography to avoid rude gestures.
  • Boy Band: Several acts, but the noteworthy one is Herreys, winner of the 1984 contest.
  • Breakaway Pop Hit: ABBA's 1974's winning entry for Sweden "Waterloo", the UK's 1996 entry "Ooh Ah Just A Little Bit" by Gina G, and Italy's winning 2021 entry "Zitti e buoni" by Måneskin are probably the best known examples of this from the Eurovision. If you include the Interval acts then "Riverdance", from Ireland 1994 probably also counts since the music was a worldwide hit, and it spawned off a musical as well.
  • Bribing Your Way to Victory:
    • Reports indicate that for 2013, Azerbaijan did just that, literally. It appears to have backfired, since they only managed to get 2nd place.
    • Downplayed with the "Big 5" countries note  who are the highest financial contributors to the EBU: them and the host country (the one spending a boatload of money to make the contest possible) get to automatically qualify for the final, regardless of previous results. These countries haven't really used this to their advantage in the final however, with Germany in 2010 and Italy in 2021 being the only times someone from the "Big 5" has won, with these countries being known for having a tendency for not taking the contest seriously, and in the case of the host, fear of having to pay to host the contest again. Not to mention, even when these nations do send credible songs, some argue that the bye is more of a disadvantage, as said artists have to wait until the final for their songs to be performed, thus having less exposure compared to the semi-finalists as a result. It is for this reason, as well as the reintroduction of juries, that led Turkey to withdraw from the contest in 2013.
    • San Marino attempted to do this by hiring a ringer for the 2021 contest, specifically Flo Rida who featured on their entry. It didn't work; they came 22nd out of 26 (and Flo Rida looked downright miserable in the green room as the results were read, to boot.)
  • The Bus Came Back: Many countries temporarily withdrew and then came back after one or a few years. However, there are some notable examples of countries that returned after more than one decade of absence:
    • Malta had its first three participations in 1971, 1972 (ending up in the last place both times) and once more in 1975. After a 16-year absence, they returned in 1991 and have participated every year since.
    • Monaco participated for two decades from 1959 to 1979. After a 25-year absence, they returned in 2004 only to fail to qualify to the final for three years in a row and withdraw again in 2006.
    • Slovakia debuted in 1994 but withdrew in 1999 due to poor results. After a 10-year absence, they returned in 2009 only to fail to qualify to the final for four years in a row and withdraw again in 2012.
    • Italy participated in the contest since the beginning in 1956, until they started to miss sporadic editions in the 80s and 90s, and then withdrew entirely after 1997 (which they only entered because the broadcaster forgot to withdraw that year). After a 14-year absence, they returned in 2011 and have participated every year following.
    • Luxembourg participated in the contest for 37 years since the 1956 debut. After being relegated from the 1994 contest for scoring poorly in 1993, Luxembourg withdrew from the contest entirely. In 2023 it was announced that they would finally return in 2024, after a 31-year absence.
  • But Not Too Gay: North Macedonia's entrant for the 2020 cancelled contest (later reconfirmed for 2021) was the out-and-proud gay man Vasil Garvanliev, but in the video for his song "You" he's shown in a bar dancing seductively with a woman. Viewers joked that he's doing that to make the male bartender jealous.
  • Butt-Monkey: While Eurovision is treated as simply a campy fun fest for some, it can often be seen as a yearly frustration fest in regards to nations that are considered to be perennial losers on the final points table or for those suffering a massive Audience-Alienating Era in regards to the quality of entries. Such examples include:
    • Since around 2003 the UK has held this status, regularly finishing in the bottom five and more often than not coming dead last. Initially this was largely due to other countries protesting against their involvement in the invasion of Iraq, but this led to a vicious cycle in which talented singers refused to participate due to the likelihood of a bad Eurovision performance destroying their career note , leading to the country being forced to send underwhelming, little known or long-forgotten and sometimes legitimately terrible acts to the contest, with a predictable lack of success each time.
      • Lampshaded in the 2014 semi-finals when in a tongue-in-cheek interval act, Australia were told to move to Europe to participate in the contest, prompting them to lift the country out with helicopters and dumping themselves on top of the UK.

        This became Hilarious in Hindsight when it was announced that Australia would participate as a special guest for 2015. Doubly so when the UK gave Australia 10 points, while Australia gave the UK nul points. On top of that, Australia earned more points in one Eurovision (196, finishing 5th) than the UK had combined since 2010 (190).
      • However, the 2022 final did prove that when the UK actually take the contest seriously, they do very well indeed; Sam Ryder finished 2nd behind Ukraine, and actually topped the jury vote.
      • Also applies to their neighbours Ireland. Whether or not the Brexit debacle has driven them apart politically, the pair, who have had just 6 of their 47 entries between them since the Free Languages make the top 10 (Eamon Toal, Jessica Garlick, Brian Kennedy, Jade Ewen, Jedward's first appearance and Sam Ryder) have had an almost intertwined form. The last places of Sarah McTernan (Ireland) in heat 2 and Michael Rice (UK) in the final in 2019 seemed like evidence of this as well, but the disaster endings for Lesley Roy for the Irish and James Newman for the British, with songs that had been promising in the eyes of fandoms and predictor juries before the rehearsals underscored their bereft presences, doubled down on this — neither act even contributed to the Live on tape post-contest special!
      • In Ireland, the “My Lovely Horse” joke, and the real life participation of one of its biggest comedic characters, Dustin The Turkey, who has since often joked about the broadcaster being saved a fortune for Ireland not winning, underscore that they are seen as such.
    • Could also apply to The Netherlands, who holds the record for failing to qualify for the final in 8 consecutive years. This was even exploited in 2013, when the Dutch had high hopes for their act performed by A-list star Anouk to break this string. Their announcement of reaching the final was saved to the last. The Netherlands did recover well from this negative streak by reaching 9th place in 2013 and even 2nd in 2014, their best placing since their last win in 1975. A few hiccups would happen in the years afterwards — they failed to qualify in 2015 and could only make 18th in 2018 - before winning the Contest in 2019.
    • The Polish audience was so accustomed to failing yet another contestnote , it was a massive surprise for everyone (even for Donatan and Cleo, the year's Polish representatives, themselves!) that in 2014 they actually scored enough points to get to the finals. And "We are Slavic" didn't even come dead last in the finals — actually, the 14th place was one of the best places in the whole history of Polish performances on Eurovision. Poland made four finals on the trot afterwards, despite none of their entries in that period being amongst the jury top 10 in their heat, likely due to their large expatriate communities in the EU and common Market after they joined (most egregiously in 2016 when, after being 2nd last with the jury, they were 3rd with the public, placing in the top 3 in many countries with large Polish communities, and getting only a 3rd ever top 10 place in the final), but a failure to qualify in both 2018 and 2019 proved that it only had so much effect (although they finished 10th in the public vote in 2018 and were two points short of qualifying in 2019).
    • Countries like Finland were accustomed to finishing lastnote  or on the right side of the scoreboard, that when Lordi won Eurovision, it came as a cause of celebration. Even today, no Finnish entry has come close to matching their success (in fact, they've only finished on the left-hand side on the scoreboard there times since, in 2014, 2021 and 2023).
    • Andorra has only participated 6 times, and never gathered enough points to qualify for the final. They last took part in 2009, citing financial difficulties for their non-participation.
    • The Czech Republic followed a similar pattern to Andorra, with four appearances that all failed to qualify for the final between 2007 to 2009note  and 2015 onward. After a five-year hiatus, they returned to the competition in 2015, and yet again failed to make it past the semifinals. In 2016, the Czech Republic finally made its way into the final... only to be put in the death slot second running-order position, taking next-to-last place once there, and getting no televoting points! 2018 got them into the final, although they had nearly had to withdraw as the singer was taken to hospital after doing a backflip in the rehearsal, although he recovered in time for the next set of rehearsals, went on to progress and finished sixth. They eased into the final with two of their next three acts but both were given very early slots and earned single figure televote scores (just about costing them a top 10 place in 2019, but leading to them being bottom 5 in 2022). In 2021, they failed to get a tele voting point in their heat due to an abysmal live performance putting paid to what was a decent chance of qualifying.
    • Portugal is one of the countries that have competed the longest (since 1964) and has never finished in the top 5 before 2017. Between 2010 and 2015, they had never qualified to the grand final. With those marginals, it's one of the biggest Butt Monkeys in the contest. In 2017, however, Portugal qualified for the first time in seven years with a minimalistic own language ballad that ended up winning, with both the jury vote and televote putting them first. When they hosted in 2018, they did a skit mocking how long it took them to win.
    • San Marino have entered thirteen times. They finished rock-bottom in the semifinal in 2008 (with the fewest points of any song in any show that year), didn't enter the next two years and failed to qualify the next three years. They finally qualified for the final in 2014, when they finished third-last, and didn't qualify again until 2019. Their 2021 entry was initially a fan favourite and widely expected to be their best result, but it ended up 22nd, with only 13 televote points.
    • Germany looks like they might be after this status — they finished last with 0 points in 2015note , last (but with points) in 2016 and second-last in 2017. They did manage to turn it around in 2018: a new selection process led to a strong pick in Michael Schulte's Tear Jerker "You Let Me Walk Alone," bringing them to a proud fourth place (and, beyond that, it was the first time Germany got douze points from anyone — four times, in fact — since their 2010 win). This lasted precisely one year: in 2019, they finished second-bottom and got nil points from the public vote, which occurred AGAIN in 2021 despite their song going all-out (in 2020, they would've sent a very promising song, but it didn't convince live and they looked elsewhere for the next contest). They finished bottom yet AGAIN in 2022, with 6 points — however, unlike the last two occasions, it would be the juries, not the public, that blanked them. They finished bottom once again in 2023, although they got points from both sets of points this time, for the first time since 2018.
    • The Former Yugoslav countries (with the exception of Serbia and maybe Bosnia) are all this to varying levels:
      • Croatia is a downplayed case, while they have a rather decent qualification record (7 out of 16 times), finished in the top half every year except once between 1993 and 2003 and never came last in the contest, they didn't qualify to the final between 2017 and 2022 with 2021 a shining example of this trope for them as they were in the Top 10 with both juries and televoters and still didn't qualify to the final (the only time that had ever happened).
      • Slovenia has a spotty qualification record (6 out of 18 times), never finished above 7th in the contest and even came last twice in 2013 and 2022.
      • North Macedonia is a similar case as Slovenia, they only qualified 6 out of 18 times to the final and never finished above 7th place in the contest. In 2008 and 2009, there was a jury save system in the heats, where the 10th place of the televote could be nullified for one pick of the jurynote . They got the incredibly short end of the deal, when they finished 10th in their heat for both years, but were ditched for Sweden and Finland respectively.
      • The biggest one out of those countries however is easily Montenegro, ever since joining the contest in 2007 they only managed to qualify for the final twice out of 12 occasions (to make a comparision, San Marino managed to qualify more times to the final with the same number of participations) and they are also the only Former Yugoslav country to never even reach the Top 10 (their best result to date was a 13th place in 2015).
  • Catchphrase: Douze points! Twelve points goes to... (SIC) Royaume Uni dix points!
  • Cheaters Never Prosper: During the second semifinal in 2022, the juries for Azerbaijan, Georgia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, and San Marino were all disqualified and had a substitute jury vote created for them, based on the (legitimate) jury votes from the other countries in their pot in the allocation draw. According to one of Belgium's broadcasters, they had made agreements to vote for one another.
  • Circassian Beauty: Azerbaijan seems to have favored of attractive female contestants, particularly since its debut, Azerbaijan has had Aysel Teymurzadeh (third, Moscow 2009), Safura Alizadeh (fifth, Oslo 2010), Nigar Jamal (winner, Düsseldorf 2011), Sabina Babayeva (fourth, Baku 2012), Dilara Kazimova (twenty-second, Copenhagen 2014), Samra Rahimli (seventeenth, Stockholm 2016), Diana Hajiyeva (fourteenth, Kyiv 2017), Aysel Mammadova (semifinalist, Lisbon 2018) and Samira Efendi (twentieth, Rotterdam 2020/2021). Georgian Sopho (twelfth, Helsinki 2007), Sofia Nizharadze (ninth, Oslo 2010), Nina Sublatti (eleventh, Vienna 2015), Tamara Gachechiladze (semifinalist, Kyiv 2017) and Armenian Sirusho (fourth, Belgrade 2008), Eva Rivas (seventh, Oslo 2010), Emmy (semifinalist, Düsseldorf 2011), Iveta Mukuchyan (seventh, Stockholm 2016), Artsvik (eighteenth, Kyiv 2017), Rosa Linn (twentieth, but future TikTok sensation, Turin 2022), and Brunette (fourteenth, Liverpool 2023) also count as well.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The individual members of Iceland's 2014 entry, Pollapönk. Whether in tracksuits, suit and tie, dresses, or bathrobes, they would wear the same colors. They even painted their [finger]nails for you!
  • Confetti Drop: A massive confetti drop usually happens during the winner's Triumphant Reprise. Confetti isn't allowed during the main show as there isn't enough time to clear it up between performances.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle:
    • Lordi, a silly curiosity act, positively annihilated the competition as the votes came in in 2006, getting top-level votes (usually 8-12 points) from almost every country. At the time, their points total of 292 was a Eurovision record. It has since been broken thrice over, by Norway in 2009 with 387 points (169 more than second-placed Iceland), Sweden in 2012 with 372 points (113 more than second-placed Russia) and again Sweden in 2015 with 365 points (62 more than second-placed Russia).
    • In 1994, the winner Ireland was the first country to break the 200-point barrier with 226 points and a healthy lead of 60 points over the runner-up Poland. Three years later in 1997, Katrina and the Waves, representing the United Kingdom, beat their record with 227 points, a 70 point lead over the Irish runner-ups, and racked up 10 sets of douze points. To date, five winners have had larger winning margins: the aforementioned Norway in 2009 with a 169 point lead; Germany in 2010 with a 76 point lead; Sweden in 2012 with a 113 point lead; Portugal in 2017 with a 143 point lead; and Ukraine in 2022 with a 165 point lead.
    • Subverted by Australia in 2016, due to the jury voting being presented first, followed by the televotes. Oz dominated the jury votes by a 200-point margin, to the point that it seemed like they would be the clear winner, but the televotes closed that gap, leading to a dramatic last-minute victory by Ukraine.
    • Portugal in 2017, with a gap of almost 300 points between it and third, and a massive 143 point difference between them and second (Bulgaria).
    • Ukraine in 2022, who won by 165 points over the second placed UK. The UK actually won the jury vote, but a huge televote of 439 points (the largest ever given in the Eurovision, with 28 of the 39 other countries giving them 12 points), saw Ukraine jump into the lead from 4th place, where they then stayed.
  • Curse: While nations performing later in the contest tends to have a better chance of winning, as most viewers remember the song more when it’s time to vote, a nation having to perform 2nd in the final running order is known to be a kiss of death to one's chances of winning the contest. Not only that nobody has won performing there, it has produced the most last place finishes and many pre-contest favorites have found themselves bombing in the scorecard from having to perform 2nd. Notable victims to the curse include Vicky Leandros (1967), Ronnie Tober (1968) note , Olivia Newton-John (1974), Matia Bazaar (1979), Gili & Galit (1989) and Gina G (1996). The producers, who have decided the running order since 2013, usually put a song with little chance of winning — usually a simple ballad which fares poorly — in this slot, after opening with an upbeat song.

    D-G 
  • Dark Horse Victory: A decent number of entries have surpassed expectations and snatched victory away from the act considered the favorite to win. This is especially common if the frontrunner's performance in the grand final ends up being underwhelming. The introduction of the split voting system has led to some dramatic examples of this where a contestant who tops the leaderboard suddenly gets overtaken by an act that scored higher with the public than the juries. Particularly notable examples include Finland in 2006 (Lordi who were largely treated as a joke entry by actual Finns, only for their performance to win everyone's hearts and become the first rock act to win the contest altogether) and Serbia in 2007 (their act, Marija Serifovic, was completely devoid of any of the theatricality that would've been successful in the contest, but nonetheless won thanks to a surprisingly heartfelt performance coupled with heavy lesbian subtext).
  • Deadpan Snarker:
    • The BBC seems to be developing a tradition of having a snarky presenter from the Republic of Ireland do its Eurovision commentary. BBC commentary was provided until 2008 by Terry Wogan, who spent the entire broadcasts drinking Bailey's and snarking about how terrible the acts were, how terrible the hosts were, and how shamelessly political the voting became. Wogan has since been replaced by Graham Norton, who proudly continued the tradition of snark in 2009 and 2010 (including snarking over his own interview during half-time).
      Graham: (about Greece receiving a lot of points in 2012) The Greek finance minister has just died a little inside.
    • Kristian Luuk, Swedish commentator from 2007 to 2008, would throw sarcastic remarks at pretty much everything, some of which were pretty irrelevant to the entries and the voting, doubled with a hoot he often used, even during Andorra's performance. Predictably, he got warnings from the broadcast channel to stop his behavior immediately, but he ignored them.
      Luuk: (about one of the spokesmen) Look at that guy's fat chin!
    • The current Swedish, Edward af Sillén, is also known for his snark. In 2015 he made the following comment which went viral:
      af Sillén: As you might have noticed, Ukraine isn't part of ESC this year. Anyway, here's Russia with a song about peace.
  • Decon-Recon Switch: The language(s) of each participating song. From 1956 until 1965, there was no restriction of the language(s) in the selected songs, but since Sweden's Ingvar Wixell sang his song in English in the 1965 contest, a rule was imposed that a song must be performed in each country's own official languages. This rule was later lifted in 1973, which participants were allowed to enter songs in any language. Several participants took advantage of this, with songs in English by non-English speaking countries. Due to the heavy favor of English, in 1977, the contest organiser reimposed the national language restriction again, until The '90s when Ireland created the streak of three wins due to being one of the only three countries which were allowed to sing in English, then a free choice of language was allowed again since 1999, but this can lead to an accusation of the monotonous trend of the songs in English again during The New '10s, until Salvador Sobral won the 2017 contest with entirely Portuguese song "Amar pelos dois", which sparked a small wave of some countries use their own native languages in the songs since then.
  • Department of Redundancy Department: Finland's 1998 entry "Aava" contained the fewest different words of any Eurovision entry (only six distictive words are displayed repetitively through the song).
  • Denser and Wackier: How the contest has changed over time. In the early years, especially those filmed in black and white, it was presented as more classy and serious. Gradually throughout the rest of the 20th century, more humorous, satirical, or otherwise unusual entries and performances would crop up, but in the early 2000s the norm became campy, over-the-top, and often entertainingly trashy, reaching its peak in 2008.
    • The 2020s' have been noted as including a lot more gimmicky entries and others that aim to be more unique compared to what was usually seen during the final years of the 2010s'.
  • Determinator:
    • Claudia Faniello was selected to represent Malta in 2017 — on her ninth attempt. Unfortunately, she was eliminated after finishing third-to-last in the semi-finals with no televote points, while being 8th in the jury vote.
    • Samanta Tina would also finally get to perform in the Contest on her ninth attempt — having tried to represent Lithuania twice and Latvia six times before getting her chance in 2021. She was due to compete for Latvia in 2020 until the COVID-19 pandemic caused it to be cancelled. LTV would send her again in 2021, but she finished bottom of her semifinal. Time will tell if she decides to make a tenth attempt.
  • Discretion Shot: Between each song (to give the TV audience something to look at while the set is being changed), the next act is prefaced with a brief onscreen presentation, referred to as a "postcard". (Whilst an integral part of the contest nowadays, they wore introduced in 1970 to pad the show out — the previous year's four-way tie caused four countries to withdraw.) Usually it shows montages of either the artists or sights from the host country. Recent examples have included;
    • Belgrade 2008: Performers dancing in the colours of the country's flag, whilst a short letter is written in the country's language — except for Belgium (written in the same constructed language as its song) and Serbia (which was "Welcome to Belgrade" or "Welcome to Serbia" in various languages).
    • Moscow 2009: Ksenia Sukhinova, 2008 Miss World, wearing a hat containing miniature images of famous sights of the country, with her dress patterned after its flag's colours. It finished with a word or phrase in Russian — transliterated into the Latin alphabet — and its English meaning.
    • Oslo 2010: The "spheres of moments" form a map of the next act's country, then summon a screen showing a flash mob cheering on their performer walking onto the stage, and then transform into the national flag.
    • Düsseldorf 2011: Expatriates from the performing act's home country engaging in their profession in Germany, ending with them uttering the edition slogan "Feel Your Heart Beat!" in their national language.
    • Baku 2012: A montage of various sights in Azerbaijan, ending with the LED array of the exterior of Baku Crystal Hall lighting up in the country's colours.
    • Malmö 2013: The artists preparing for their trip from their home country, ending with a butterfly bearing the pattern of the country's flag flying off to Malmö.
    • Copenhagen 2014: The artists using different media (such as paint, jigsaw puzzle pieces or even flowers) to make up their country's flag, before taking a photograph of the result.
    • Vienna 2015: The artists receiving boxes containing items which serve as "clues" to their activities in Austria, ending with both the artists and the inviting party waving from a billboard somewhere in Vienna.
    • Stockholm 2016: A close-up of the artist/s, followed with a montage of him/her/them engaging in various activities along with family, friends and/or each other (if in groups) as stylized names of their countries are displayed and dandelions in their national colours fly.
    • Kyiv 2017: Starts with the acts doing the Mannequin Challenge in a tunnel followed by “flashbacks” of the singers being themselves and preparing for the contest in their host countrynote , ending with the artists proceeding to walk on stage.
    • Lisbon 2018: The artist/s going to various locales across Portugal and engaging in various local activities, ending with him/her/them posting a selfie with the edition's official hashtag "#allaboard" displayed onscreen, followed with a display of the name of the country, song and other data amidst a background of underwater plants displaying the colours of the competing nation.
    • Tel Aviv 2019: The artist/s, walking around various locales in Israel, pressing an imaginary play button (a wireframe triangle made of light), leading him/her/them into a dance-off with local dancers, before casting another triangle onto the screen and into the arena, where it joins an array of triangles hovering over the stage forming the flag of the participating nation. Many acts posted from their postcard filming when recording.
    • Rotterdam 2020: Would have followed the same theme as the previous two, but based around the ordinary people that the contestants mingle with. Spain, whose act — selected as far back as the previous October — would get immediate first refusal following the show's annulment, had filmed a postcard, but other acts cancelling their shoots due to the escalating crisis, and laws their nations sometimes imposed as regards this, made it untenable.
      • Rotterdam 2021: Unlike the presenters, draw and staging, the postcards were to be changed slightly from the 2020 contest, as the acts will would be shown beamed into a house virtually from their home country, to prevent the problems that made the previous contest untenable from repeating, though the concept of involving the local community in some way does remain. This updated concept was revealed in December 2020. It involved the virtual house filling up with the act's possessions and videos of them, the act appearing briefly, and than a ray of light striking the house and splitting into flag colours.
    • Torino 2022: To tie in with the slogan of "The Sound of Beauty", a drone flew over picturesque areas of Italy with pictures of the performers, who then appeared on a building or similar via chrome keying.
    • Liverpool 2023: The postcards would start with a landmark in Ukraine, then the United Kingdom and finishing up with a landmark in the country about to perform — all three being linked to one another, like town halls or cathedrals — with the performer taking part in an activity of their choice.
  • Disproportionate Retribution:
    • Conflicts between Azerbaijan and Armenia took centre-stage at Moscow 2009 due to continuing conflicts over Nagorno-Karabakh: during the semifinals, "We Are Our Mountains", a pro-Armenian statue near the capital Stepanakert, appeared in the Armenian postcard. After Azerbaijan promptly complained, since it recognizes the region as its property, the statue was edited out for the final... to which Armenian presenter (and 2008 fourth-placer) Sirusho responded by having the aforementioned statue be her backdrop, and taped a picture of it to her clipboard. Following the finals, Azerbaijan's Ministry of National Security proceeded to interrogate the 43 people who voted for Armenia, considering them to be a "a potential security threat". The EBU ultimately fined Azerbaijan over its misconduct, alongside allegations that they tried to censor the Armenian entry during the final.
      • Ironically, this is the only time ever that Armenia voted for Azerbaijan, gifting them a single point in the final. As far as people know, no interrogations were made.
    • Predictably, when Azerbaijan won Düsseldorf 2011, Armenia pulled out for 2012.
    • It is also interesting that for such an LGBT-friendly event, the 2012 contest was held in a country with draconian anti-homosexual laws inherited from the old Soviet Union, where being gay earned a stay in The Gulag (those were repealed in 2000 but violent homophobia has remained in society). British TV commentator Graham Norton, an openly gay man, defended his role against criticism from gay rights groups by saying he was "unaware" of Azerbaijan's institutional homophobia and draconian laws.
      • Their 2020 entry opened with the lyrics “Cleopatra was a queen like me... straight or gay or in between”, and was a major fan favourite. Samira Efendi, who represented them anew in 2021, indeed has said it is an LGBT celebrating anthem.
    • The conflicts between Russia and Ukraine over Crimea (which Russia annexed in 2014) brought political heat to the 2017 contest, especially given that Ukraine had won the 2016 contest with a song alluding to an event in Crimean history. Right after Russia unveiled their performer Yulia Samoilova, the Ukrainian government declared her Persona Non Grata for having travelled directly from Russia to Crimea to perform. The EBU offered to allow her to perform remotely from a venue in Russia instead, but the Russian broadcaster has insisted that Samoilova be able to perform in Kiev like everyone else. Prior to this conflict, Ukraine also affirmed that it would not exempt Eurovision from its recent policy of banning artists who supported the annexation of Crimea from the country. Much like Armenia before, Russia ultimately dropped out.
  • Down to the Last Play: The voting has seen some tight battles at the top. The most notable examples are:
    • 1968 - Spain beat the United Kingdom by one point, despite Cliff Richard being the overwhelming favourite to win.
    • 1988 - Switzerland beat the United Kingdom by one pointnote . In a spooky coincidence, Yugoslavia were the last jury to award their points in 1968. Which would be the narrowest margin of victory until...
    • 1991 - Wherein France and Sweden finished level on points, with Sweden winning by getting more sets of 10 points (they had tied on the first tie-breaker, as both got the same number of 12pts).note 
    • 1998 - With just Macedonia left to vote, Israel and Malta were tied on points. Macedonia would give Israel 8 points and Malta 0.
    • 2003 - With just Slovenia left to vote, Turkey, Belgium and Russia could still all win. As a result, the televoting announcer jokingly walked away before giving the votes (and Turkey the win).
    • The Melodifestivalen-inspired voting system in place from 2016 – each jury announces in turn, then total televote points are added in reverse order of the standings after the jury voting – is deliberately designed to prevent runaway winners and heighten the drama of the results portion of the show (working incredibly well each time). In 2019, it was adjusted to be done in ascending jury vote order, ie, Spain and the Israeli hosts, the jury's bottom 2, would get televotes first, and Netherlands, North Macedonia (a nation who had never before made the top 10) and Sweden, would be the last to be read out. It was even more effective, and the title was won by just 26 points — in fact, the top 3 had less than 20 televotes between them.
  • Dramatic Wind: Wind machines are a popular staging choice, especially for female singers with long hair that can fan out dramatically around them.
  • Dreadful Musician: Though thorougly averted with the vast majority of victors, some musicians still stand out. Jemini, legendary for their nul points in 2003, fit this, as does Piero and the Music Stars of 2004, where they were unceremoniously kicked out of the semi finals with a whopping no points.
  • Dressed Like a Dominatrix: Iceland's entry in 1997 featured four dancers in latex leotards. 22 years later, the same country sent a techno-industrial band Hatari in BDSM attires. In 2023, their drummer Einar Stefánsson announced Iceland's jury votes dressed in the same way.
  • Due to the Dead: In January 2016, BBC's previous ESC commentator Terry Wogan passed away. Graham Norton toasted to him that year at the start of the 9th song, saying that Sir Terry (who was famous for getting progressively more drunk during his commentary) "would never start drinking before song no. 9.", which a draw in March that year revealed would be hosts Sweden. He did the same in 2017 (for seeming favourites Italy), 2018 (for the UK's entry — before it was ruined), 2019 (Sweden again), 2021 (the United Kingdom again), 2022 (Italy again) and 2023 (eventual winners Sweden).
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: Lugano 1956 was mostly broadcast for TV and radio, though mostly for radio as television was an expensive luxury back in the mid-50's and had 7 countries (there were more planned, but they didn't get the paperwork done in time) providing two songs each, presumably to pad it out. There was one winner — Switzerland, who didn't win again until Céline Dion gave them a hand — and everyone else came "second", with the point allocation being secret. Also, one song was just some guy whistling to a band. invoked
    • The first ever semi-final in 2004 showed the scores of the non-qualifying countries immediately after the qualifiers were all announced (brutally unveiling Switzerland's nul points in the process). Every contest since, the semi-final results are announced in the hours after the final has concluded.
  • Eiffel Tower Effect: During the results portion of the show the spokesperson for each country is shown in front of a projection of a location which often includes a famous landmark. France's backdrop is usually the Eiffel Tower.
  • Eliminated from the Race: Every year since the introduction of the semi-finals in 2004, the countries in the lowest places won't make the final.
  • Epic Fail: Nul Points, an event where a nation ends with 0 points in the scoreboard (in modern terms, failing to reach the top 10 ranking from both the juries and public of every voting country) is seen as this by the Eurovision community. The United Kingdom's 2021 entry, "Embers" by James Newman, was a particularly special case, as it became the first song since the introduction of the split voting system to not score a single point from any jury or televote. People thought that wasn't even possible under the new system.
  • Epileptic Flashing Lights: These often appear as part of the staging, especially for rock bands. Warnings are often issued before particularly intense examples for the safety of viewers who may have issues with strobing.
  • Europop: Although depending on who you ask and the song in question, it's more of an example of how weird Europop can get.
  • Everything's Better with Sparkles: Germany's 2000 and 2009 entries had sparkling outfits, Lithuania's 2010 and 2022 entry features sparkling shorts and sparkling dress respectively, Belgium's 2016 entry had a sparkly jacket, and Australia's 2022 entry also had a beady sparkly mask. The 2021 contest in Rotterdam had no less than six acts in silver sparkling outfitsnote . Ukraine's 2007 entry (Verka Serduchka) cranks this up to eleven.
  • Every Year They Fizzle Out: The common feeling in Spain, where a ton of hype is built upon the election of that year's entrant, boosted by a large online contingent... only to come back down to earth with a bump when the votes are counted. Neither Edurne in 2015 nor Barei in 2016 got into the top 20 — and who knows if either of them would have even made it past the semi-finals if Spain wasn't in the "Big Five". In 2017, Manel Navarro came dead last, with only 5 points from the televote (all from Portugal) and none from the juries, despite performing the song in other countries' selection shows, duetting with Lucie, and with a singer from a neighbouring country whose fortunes were rather different to his, as well as covering his fave ESC 2017 songs and covers of chart songs, such as one of Ed Sheeran endorsed by Ed himself. In 2018, this was even worse, as Operación Triunfo, responsible for their relatively successful 2002-04 entries, was brought back, and Catalan singer Alfred and Navarrese Amaia were the most followed singers on Instagram, each with more followers than any other act at the start of selection, and were dating in real life to boot, but performed 2nd and placed 23rd. In 2019, despite having a popular entry, its poor jury vote led to a 5th placing below 20th in a row. The following 2 years, in the hands of ex-boyband singer Blas Canto, they again failed to convince, being faves for last place when the 2020 contest was cancelled, and getting just 5 jury votes, and NO Televotes, in 2021, when he was given first refusal immediately after the 2020 one was canned. It doesn't help that the 2008 entrant, Rodolfo Chikilicuatre, was a "joke" entry that nobody in Spain actually expected to win, yet he still got a better ranking than many of the "serious" entries sent during the last 15 years.
    • The Spanish actually managed to finish 3rd in 2022 (their best performance since finishing second in 1995) with a Jennifer Lopez-esque number courtesy of Chanel after deciding to reboot their selection process, so perhaps things are looking up for them in terms of the Eurovision. 2023 however saw Spain take a massive drop with Blanca Paloma, who scored favorably with the jury, but only received 5 points from the televote, placing 17th.
  • Failure Hero:
    • The country that has participated the longest without any win is Portugal, which made its debut in 1964 and never finished in the top five... until 2017, when it finally won for the first time ever — the same day Francisco and Jacinta Marto, the two little shepherds from Fátima were canonized (the Pope even came to Portugal) and Benfica won their first tetra (i.e. four consecutive national football championships). It's like the stars just lined up!
    • As of 2024, Malta is the country which has debuted the longest time ago without ever winning: 53 years since their debut in 1971 (although there was a considerable gap, leaving in 1975 and not returning until 1991), the same amount of time it took Portugal to bag their first win.
    • If we consider effective contest appearances without a win, Cyprus has participated the highest number of times (39) without ever taking home the trophy, though they rose from an 80-1 outsider to narrowly lose to near-neighbour Israel in 2018. Portugal still holds the record in this category, too (48 participations resulting in failure before their first win).
  • Fanservice: Even in the least successful songs, performances with strip teasing and wardrobe malfunctions tend to be quite well remembered.
  • Flipping the Bird: Both Germany and Finland had songs in 2021 regarding this, though Blind Channel from Finland were asked not to flip whilst Germany's Jendrik literally had a lady dressed as a hand one arm away from flipping the audience. What made matters more hilarious about this is that both countries ended up performing back-to-back in the grand final.
  • Foregone Conclusion: This is often caused the end of the voting to feel anti-climactic. Around the halfway point, the country that's in the lead would have a pretty sizeable lead over the country in second place, and that difference would stay until there are about three to six countries left. The hosts would then announce that the country officially couldn't be dethroned, making the remaining announcements feel superfluous. There are some exceptions where the top countries had a pretty small gap between them, such as in 2003 and 2011, but those years are rare. Starting with the split between the Jury vote and the Public vote in 2016, the voting got a lot more tense as after the Jury votes had been counted in the traditional Eurovision way, the Public vote could change the current ranking altogether.
  • Foreign Remake: There have been several attempts at replicating the "music competition between countries/territories, where each territory sends one act" format in other regions, though they have been largely unable to match the success of the European original.
    • In 2005, German comedian, musician and Eurovision veteran Stefan Raab started the "Bundesvision (Federal Vision) Song Contest" featuring contestants representing the 16 German states. So far, all winners were already very big in Germany. It lasted for 11 editions until 2015.
    • The Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union has held its own ABU Song Festivals, with both a version delegated by television broadcasters, and a separate event delegated by radio broadcasters. Unlike Eurovision, these were more of an exhibition rather than an actual competition. Expanding upon the involvement of Australia's SBS in the actual Eurovision, it was announced in 2017 that there would be a Eurovision Asia Song Contest beginning in 2018, but after years of Schedule Slip it was quietly cancelled by SBS in 2021.
    • In 2022, the American Song Contest, comprising of all the states, territories and the District of Columbia competing against each other, was launched. It only lasted for one edition, hosted by Kelly Clarkson and Snoop Dogg, before getting cancelled.
    • Also in 2022, versions for both Canada and Latin America were announced, though as of 2024 no further developments are known.
  • Foreshadowing: In 2006, despite withdrawing from the contest because of a scandal in their National Finalnote , Serbia and Montenegro were still allowed to vote. When announcing their votes, their spokesperson said that they would return the following year with the best song. In 2007, they returned as just Serbia and won the Contest.
  • Forgotten Theme Tune Lyrics: The 1968 winning song used to have lyrics, but they were censored.note  The chorus ended up being: "la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la."
  • Funny Background Event:
    • This. Daniel Diges had to sing his song again. Hilarity Ensues when the second guy came in for the duet and people watching thought it was Jimmy Jump again.
    • The dancer in pink that keeps purposely doing the wrong moves and falls down towards the middle of the song.
    • Jamala had a Ukrainian streaker in her performance during the interval of 2017's contest. note 
    • SuRie from United Kingdom in the 2018 Contest had a stage invader who grabbed her microphone and shouted ”All of the Nazis of the UK media. We demand freedom. War is not peace!” in her performance. There was fears that Israel in all its divisiveness hosting 2019 ESC would lead to more of this happening. It did (briefly) when Netta performed in the French selection, and a couple of boycott activists with banners ran onto the stage but they were removed, and no other incidents like this occurred, even though most selections, and the show itself from within TA, had controlled protests outside from such activists.
  • Fun with Acronyms: The band behind Switzerland's 2013 entry, Heilsarmee (Salvation Army, since its performers are members of said charity) were forced to change their name because of the "no politics" rule. They re-named themselves Takasa, which pretty much stands for "The artists (formally) known as Salvation Army"
  • Gentle Giant: Denmark's 2018 contestants may have looked big and tough... only their entry song was about viking pacifism and during the green room segment with one of the hosts, they angrily yelled in Danish... which she translated as "We love cuddling little kittens".
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar:
    • Cursing is not allowed. Naturally, the occasional one slips out (for example, one of the hosts in 2001 had a notable one when it looked like he broke the trophy), but it's usually avoided. Most recently, one of the backing dancers for the Dutch entry in 2018 seemed to be clearly screaming "Fuck yeah!" to the camera when they finally qualified, the same happened in 2021 with Hooverphonic's guitarist Raymond Geerts who also let out an audible "fuck yeah!" when Belgium was announced as a qualifier.
      • In 2022, the Latvian act Citi Zēni had a particularly raunchy opening line to their entry "Eat Your Salad", which is "Instead of meat, I eat veggies and pussy". They were, of course, not allowed to sing that line on air come Eurovision, letting the audience yell the banned word in where it would be sung normally. The following year, Serbian representative Luke Black would do the same during his song "Samo mi se spava", where he held the microphone to the audience and they yelled the word "bitch" at the end of the line "game over, bitch", which was more of a Call-Back to his Madrid pre-Eurovision-party performance, where he did end up using that word in the song.
    • Speaking of 2021, the year featured two notable incidents back to back in the final: Germany's song featured references to "wiggling middle fingers" and had a giant peace sign onstage — with an arm in the index finger that she frequently put down; making a middle finger; Finland, immediately after, referred to "put your middle fingers up" and painted their middle fingers red.
    • Sweden's 1972 song "You're Summer" is notorious for the somewhat odd simile "your breasts are like swallows a-nestling". If that wasn't racy enough, the original Swedish version (written by poet Lars Forssell) is also a double entendre: "dina bröst är som svalor som häckar" can be read as "your breasts are like swallows like butts".
  • Girl Next Door: Lena Meyer-Landrut, the winner of Eurovision 2010, may or may not be trying to invoke this with her style of dress (if not her songs).
  • Golden Snitch:
    • Has been known to happen in the national selections, notably the Ukrainian entry in 2005. Having played out the preselection over the course of 15 knockout rounds, the broadcaster bizarrely added Razom nas bahato, an anthem of the previous year's Orange Revolution, as a "wildcard" entry in the final. It won the vote (and promptly had to be rewritten to remove the political content, in accordance with Eurovision rules).
    • The Maltese national final for 2013 had televoting giving one to twelve points, and six juries... each of which gave up to twelve points, so the power of televote was drastically reduced. Romania had similar problems leading to a controversial choice of entry in 2019. In Albania’s Kenges Festival, which predates their participation in the contest by decades, a jury also has a major effect.
  • Gorgeous Greek: Greece and Cyprus have sent so many Ms. Fanservice contestants, particularly since the turn of the millennium.
    • Greece has had Mando (seventeenth, Riga 2003), Helena Paparizou (winner, Kyiv 2005), Kalomira Sarantis (third, Belgrade 2008), Eleftheria Eleftheriou (seventeenth, Baku 2012), Dimitra "Demy" Papadea (nineteenth, Kyiv 2017), Gianna Terzi (semifinalist, Lisbon 2018), Katerina Duska (twenty-first, Tel Aviv 2019), Stefania Liberakakis (entrant, Rotterdam 2020 and 10th, Rotterdam 2021), and Athena Manoukian (who attempted to represent Greece at Junior level in 2008, to no avail), representing her ethnic homeland of Armenia, became the would-be sex symbol of the cancelled 2020 edition in Rotterdam.
    • Cyprus has had British-born Lisa Andreas (fifth, Istanbul 2004), Greek-born Ivi Adamou (sixteenth, Baku 2012), Albanian-born Eleni Foureira (runner-up, Lisbon 2018) and Georgian-born Tamta Goduadze (thirteenth, Tel Aviv 2019).
    • Mr. Fanservice contestants also abound, including Greece's Sakis Rouvas (third, Istanbul 2004; seventh, Moscow 2009), Loukas Yiorkas (seventh, Dusseldorf 2011), Cyprus's would-be 2020 entrant Sandro Nicholas, a German-American of Greek descent (who was not given the right to represent Cyprus in 2021), and Andrew Lambrou, an Australian of Greek-Cypriot parentage (twelfth, Liverpool 2023).
    • Representing these countries on either side of the millennium line are: Anna Vissi (Greece 1980 and 2006; Cyprus 1982); Evridki (Cyprus 1992, 1994, and 2007); and Constantinos Christoforou (Cyprus 1996, 2001, and 2005).
  • Gratuitous English: Many acts.
    • The French entries have always been in French, except for the 1996 and 2022 entries (both in Breton) and the 2011 entry (in Corsican, which was also one of the languages of the 1993 entry), although the entries in 2008note , 2016note , 2017note  as well as the one for the cancelled 2020note  edition were sung in French and English. And the 2007 entry from France was in Franglais, a creole-like mix of the two languages (which was strange and disorienting to audiences on both sides of the Channel).
    • The Spaniards have not sung in English, with just five exceptions: in 1968 — in which Spain won the contest — when, during the reprise of "La, La, La", Massiel sang the second chorus in English; in 2014, Ruth Lorenzo sang the bilingual Spanish and English "Dancing in the Rain;" in 2016, Barei was the first Spanish entrant to perform a song fully in English; Manel Navarro in 2017 sang "Do It for Your Lover" in bilingual form, and in 2022 Chanel sang the bilingual "Slo Mo". Each time that English has been featured in Spain's entry, the Real Academia Española (the Royal Spanish Academy) has voiced its public objection.
    • The Portuguese lasted longer than the French in staying in their native tongue. Their entry in 2003, "Deixa-me sonhar (só mais uma vez)", was the first of four entries to be sung partially in English; every other Portuguese entry (save for three or so, which still only used minimal English) has only been presented in Portuguese, until 2021 when they sent for the first time a fully English song ("Love Is on My Side" by The Black Mamba). In 2022, Portugal song is in both languages.
    • Israel lasted a long time before sending an entry entirely in English. While several entries only included minimal Hebrew, there were at least a few English phrases in most of the Israeli songs from about 1992 onward. Their first entry entirely in English was "Golden Boy" in 2015, which compensated for the lack of Hebrew by referencing the city of Tel Aviv and performing with a very Middle Eastern sound. This ultimately worked — Israel finished 9th, their entries in 2016 and 2017 both qualified, and 2018 (which included exactly one line in Hebrew) brought them their fourth victory.
    • On the flip side, Belarus have only sent one entry in their native language (which still was presented with an English title, "Story of My Life"), though would have had another — referred to by its own language title but a complete outsider — if 2020 was not cancelled, and Azerbaijan have sent zero. In fact, when the Bulgarian act in 2012 included a few phrases in Azerbaijani in her multi-lingual song, it was the first and only time the language appeared at Eurovision. And the contest was in Azerbaijan that year! (For what it's worth, Bulgaria didn't qualify and the English-language Azeri song finished in fourth place.)
  • Guest Fighter: The contest has no rules or restrictions on the nationalities of a performing country’s performers or songwriters (if there are any, it is at the discretion of the participating national broadcaster), so it’s not rare to see a country send a foreigner.
    • The most notable example, Céline Dion, represented Switzerland in Dublin 1988 and won (over the UK by a single point) despite hailing from Quebec, Canada.
    • In 1995, Norway won with Secret Garden, whose violinist Fionnuala Sherry came from Ireland.
    • While UK's 1997 winners Katrina and the Waves were formed in Cambridge, vocalist Katrina Leskanich was born and raised in Kansas. While some Britons might have been unamused that Katrina is American in origin, considering the UK's history of second-place finishes and uneventful results since (and three last-place finishes, including no points at all in Riga 2003), they'll take what they can get.
    • Adding to Eurovision's popularity in Australia was the fact that they sent three artists—Olivia Newton-John (Brighton 1974) and Gina G (Oslo 1996), both for the UK, as well as Johnny Logan, who won for Ireland thrice (as singer in The Hague 1980 and Brussels 1987, as well as songwriter in Malmö 1992).
    • Greece's Helena Paparizou, winner of Kyiv 2005, is of Greek ethnicity but born and raised in Sweden. She even finished fourth at the 2014 edition of Melodifestivalen, Sweden's national selection show.
    • As well as Celine Dion, Switzerland had performers from other countries representing them in the mid-2000s: Estonian girl group Vanilla Ninja in 2005, and All4One in 2006, which had members from Sweden, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Malta, Germany and Israel (as well as Switzerland).
    • 2009 winner Alexander Rybak was born in Belarus, but moved to Norway at the age of 4. He has gained and maintained popularity in Eastern Europe, which was exemplified when even their infamously partisan voting bloc gave Norway high marks. Besides Rybak, the next three highest-placing entrants are also foreign-born: Iceland's Jóhanna "Yohanna" Guðrún Jónsdóttir was born in Denmark, one of Azerbaijan's two singers—Arash Labaf—is Iranian-Swedish, and Turkey's Hadise Açıkgöz was born and broke through in Belgium. That year also saw an American, Oscar Loya, sing for Germany, and Ukrainian-born Anastasia Prikhodko sing for Russia, whilst Mira Awad became Israel's first entrant from its Arab community (20% of its population).
    • While 2011 winners Ell and Nikki (Eldar Gasimov and Nikki Jamal) are Azerbaijanis (though Jamal presently lives in London), both their backup singers and songwriters are either British or Swedish. The backing singers in particular entered the Melodifestivalen of that year before switching to Ell and Nikki when things didn't work out.
    • San Marino, being a micro-nation, is forced to rely on guest fighters. Perennial Eurovision songwriter Ralph Siegel from Germany has written and composed 5 out of 6 of San Marino's entries between 2012 through 2017. Serial performer Valentina Monetta, whom if she won, would make history in its sleep, recruited American Jimmie Wilson in 2017. The only time San Marino did not recruit Siegel within that period (2016), the singer was from Turkey with Turkish and Greek writers. For 2018, their selection process involved applications from everywhere, almost literally (including Argentina, Philippines and Zimbabwe), with a single local musician from a pool of 7 as well leading to a final of 12 acts singing songs written by Austria's francophone 2016 act, but usually in English or Italian. Malta and Germany were the home countries of the 2 winners. Their 2016 entrant returns for 2019 with a self written tune. And in 2021, they brought Flo Rida. Neighboring Italy has also provided talent in 2008, 2011, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. 2024 saw artists, who came short in the respective qualifiers of Spain and San Marino the previous year, switch places and be picked.
    • Albania's 2012 fifth-placer Rona Nishliu hails from Kosovo, but its recognition issues currently prevents it from participating in the contest, so it is not uncommon and justifiable for Kosovars to be represented by Albania in international events. The same happened in 2017 with Lindita Halimi and in 2023 with Albina Kelmendi. Neither Azerbaijan — despite the common cultural Muslim religion — or Ukraine recognises Kosovo, and Ukraine's football team hosted Kosovo in Poland rather than Ukraine itself the previous autumn, although both have normal and strong relations with Albania.
    • Armenia's Genealogy (16th place, Vienna 2015) is essentially a Multinational Team, representing the worldwide Armenian diaspora: Inga Arshakyan (Armenia), Mary-Jean O'Doherty Basmadjian (Australia), Vahe Tilbian (Ethiopia), Essaï Altounian (France), Stephanie Topalian (Japan) and Tamar Kaprelian (USA).
    • The major trend of the 2010s have seen a proliferation of various national broadcasters outsourcing song composition to Swedish songwriters (e.g. every Azerbaijani entry since 2009).
    • Monaco's tiny population — about 38,400 in 2016 — means that most of their performers came from neighbouring France.
    • The majority of Luxembourg's participants (all but nine) come from outside Luxembourg itself. This includes their five winners (four from France, one from Greece), and a great deal of them weren't even from French-speaking countries (competitors have hailed from Germany, the UK, the USA, Spain, the Netherlands, and Ireland, among other places, as well as partially-French Belgium).
    • The 2018 contest saw a handful of artists representing countries other than their place of birth: the aforementioned Jessika and Jenifer (respectively Maltese and German) for San Marino; two-fifths of the Bulgarian act coming from the US; Albanian emigrants for both Italy and Cyprus (to top it off, Eleni Foureira lives in Greece and has Greek, not Cypriot, citizenship); a Brazilian singer of Latvian and Italian descent for Latvia; Swedish Lukas Meijer lending vocals to Poland's act; the Belarus-born Alexander Rybak again for Norway and Alekseev (Ukrainian) for Belarus.
    • Canadian singers represented Greece and Romania in 2019. The latter beat an American and a Filipino in a controversial selection process.
    • 2020 would have seen a Greek of Armenian descent for Armenia, a Dutch woman of Greek descent for Greece, and a Suriname-born Dutch singer, in a unique chain, as well as singers of Filipino lineage from Austria and Australia, and a Slovenian for Germany, amongst many others in what would have been one of the most diverse song contests ever. Many of the acts are to return in 2021.
    • In 2022 although no one was entirely sure who were underneath the masks, the fact that one of the Norwegian duo Subwoolfer spoke with a British accent led to much speculation across both sides of the North Sea as to just who he actually was. (The favourite guess was that it was A1 singer Ben Adams, which was proven in the Norwegian national final in 2023).
    • In Vienna 2015, Australia itself was allowed to participate in honor of both the 60th anniversary of the contest and to reward its loyalty, with their performer Guy Sebastian finishing in fifth-place. Since then, they have been invited to compete ever since, including a respectable 2nd place in 2016.

    H-R 
  • Handicapped Badass:
    • Blind singer and pianist Serafín Zubiri represented Spain twice (1992 and 2000).
    • 2015 gave us both Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät, a Finnish punk rock band made up of men with intellectual disabilitiesnote  and Monika Kuszyńska from Poland, who performed a wonderfully moving and heartwarming song, in a wheelchair.
    • Julia Samoylova from Russia, finally allowed to compete in 2018.
    • In the 2019 selection process, the host nation had an act called Shalva consisting of 8 members from a Jewish disability charity, who were expected to win and represent Israel, but dropped out before the final, due to their religious devotion (whilst the Shabbat finishes in Israel before the ESC starts, rehearsals take place on the Friday night and Saturday morning, when the holy day occurs), and the fact they are larger than the limit for people on stage (6 members). However, they decided to perform as an interval act in the heats instead, which are in a midweek and don't limit the number of people on stage at any time.
  • Homoerotic Subtext: While the Ho Yay moments are many (see the YMMV page for some examples), just as many are the intentional cases alluding to (or straight-up referencing) homosexual attraction:
    • In terms of subtext and allusion, Cannes 1961 winner "Nous les amoureux" by Jean-Claude Pascal for Luxembourg takes the proverbial cake. At first glance, the lyrics could refer to any relationship facing judgment or discrimination by society at the time, and the subjects are not gendered.note  It wasn't until decades later that Pascal confirmed the song was about a homosexual relationship, and that this was his own experience.
    • The winning song of Helsinki 2007, "Molitva" by Serbian singer Marija Šerifović, has lots of close contact among the all-female ensemble, and it concludes with them revealing red hearts drawn on their held hands. Šerifović herself would come out as WLW in 2014.
    • Finland's performance in 2013 was ended beautifully with a sapphic kiss between Krista Siegfrids and one of the backing vocalists.
    • Norway's Subwoolfer (10th, Turin 2022) and their song "Give That Wolf a Banana" have their entry filed under Ho Yay, but this is exaggerated by a Valentine's Day version of their song named "Give That Wolf a Romantic Banana" with a picture of them kiss each other on the thumbnail.
  • Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Maxine and Franklin Brown for the Netherlands in 1996.
  • Impossibly Tacky Clothes: An award for the funniest costume, the Barbara Dex Award, ran from 1997 to 2021. It's named after Belgian singer Barbara Dex, who sewed her own dress for the 1993 contest. However, in March 2022, it was announced the award would be redesigned and renamed, as it made acts vulnerable to hatedoms and degradation, even though Dex herself was not offended by the prize.
  • Inopportune Voice Cracking: Manel Navarro's performance for Spain in 2017 is best remembered for his squawk towards the end of the song. Combined with the fact that he wasn't a heavy favorite thanks to a somewhat bland song and a massively controversial national selection, it didn't really come as a surprise when he finished last.
  • Long-Runners
    • German composer Ralph Siegel wrote a whopping 22 songs, ranging from "Ein bißchen Frieden", West Germany's winning song for Harrogate 1982, to San Marino's entries in 2012-15 and 2017, 4 of which were sang by Valentina Monetta (2017 in a duet with an American singer).
    • After taking place every year since 1956, in 2020 the Song Contest had to be cancelled for the first time in 65 years amidst growing concerns (and quarantines) in regards to the spread of COVID-19. It returned in 2021, in Rotterdam as originally planned, with several scenarios to ensure it happened to ensure 2020's cancellation would be a one off.
  • Lyrical Dissonance:
    • Most notably "Waterloo", an upbeat song comparing the narrator's relationship to the Battle of Waterloo.
    • "Mercy" (France 2018) is a happy-sounding song about the children who die crossing the Mediterranean while fleeing with their families (but it might be justified in that it is from the perspective of a newborn baby).
      Je suis tous ces enfants
      Que la mer a pris.note 
    • "Fairytale" (the winner of the 2009 contest, from Norway) is about being in love with an unachievable person. Cheerfully so, with hallingdans dance moves.
      I'm in love with a fairy tale
      Even though it hurts
      'Cause I don't care if I lose my mind
      I'm already cursed
    • "Viszlát Nyár" also fall in this category, the song has a pretty intense and energetic Post-Hardcore sound despite the lyrics being the last words of the singer's deceased father.
      Játsszunk nyílt lapokkal végre
      A hajómnak mennie kell
      És itt fog hagyni téged
    • "Shum" (Ukraine 2021) is a high-energy techno song about a spring summoning ritual and sowing hemp seeds. Immediately after a beat drop and a tempo rise:
      Весняночко, весняночкоnote 
      Де ти зимувала?note 
      У садочку на кленочкуnote 
      Сорочечку прялаnote 
  • Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Slovenia's entry in 2002 was performed by a trio of men in drag, with two male and one female backing singer dressed as airline pilots in a full white suit, trousers and cap.
  • Minor Flaw, Major Breakup: The 2014 Belarus entry was about a guy who dumped his girlfriend... because she affectionately called him "sweet cheesecake".
  • Mood Whiplash:
    • In Stockholm 2000, the Dutch live broadcast was stopped halfway through. A fireworks storage had gone up in flames, so those watching the dopey-happy show were treated to a special bulletin of an entire city block having been incinerated. The rest of the European watching public learned about this from the Dutch spokeswoman — that fireworks explosion was the reason that the Dutch had to give the points by jury that year.
    • In Baku 2012, Albania was allowed to delay their broadcast of the first semifinal (in which they were performing) and only use jury votes due to a serious bus accident which had occurred the day before and led the government to declare a day of mourning on the date of the semifinal.
    • A round of the selection for Hungary's ESC song in 2017 was rearranged because of a bus crash in Italy which claimed the life of Hungarian students.
    • At the finals in 2019, when Iceland's act got the results of the televote and the camera showed them ...the band members swung pro-Palestinian banners. At the final in Tel Aviv in Israel. The mood in the live audience quickly changed from excitement for the voting to loud booing.
  • The Movie: Will Ferrell's Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, which he co-wrote and starred in after being a fan of the competition for decades. Junior Eurovision also had documentary made about it, titled Sounds Like Teen Spirit: A Popumentary.
  • Mr. Fanservice: Much to the joy of many fans
    • 2016 host Måns Zelmerlöw stripped down to nothing but a stuffed animal to cover himself in the semifinals as a part of a gag. During the final, he ripped his shirt open to show off his very nice torso during a parody song about the perfect Eurovision song. In 2019, he was regularly implored by Scott Mills and Assi Azar to take his shirt off prior to a slowed down cover of "Fuego", which is a very raunchy tune. He kept it on, however.
    • Estonia and France in the lost 2020 contest, and also Croatia and Cyprus in the eyes of many fans in that year. Estonia's Uku Suviste was confirmed for the 2021 after defending his honour in the national selection. Croatia, Cyprus and France, however, sent entirely new acts to the 2021 contest — all of them ladies.
    • 2008 winner Dima Bilan ripped his shirt off to reveal his abs in the end of his performance.
    • Sakis Rouvas represented Greece twice in 2004 and 2009, both of his entries see him wearing a white shirt that highlights his pecs, and performing highly energetic and athletic choreography.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Multiple.
    • Armenia's 2016 contestant, Iveta Mukuchyan seems to be playing this trope in one of her performances, with a really revealing get up.
    • Jana Burčeska who represented North Macedonia in 2017 could count as well. She was several months pregnant at the time, and her partner proposed on-air while they were waiting for the results.
    • It was nothing on what would have been their 2020 entry, Greek born Athena Manoukian. She was known for having auditioned for The X Factor once by doing the "50 Shades of Grey" version of Crazy in Love and led to this hip-hop and R&B inspired, distincively produced song "Chains on You", where diamonds and chains are talked about as a symbol of empowerment and sexual self determination. Their rivals Azerbaijan, and Serbia, also went heavily for fanservice women in this lost year, and, like Armenia, had a strong feminist message of self determination in their songs.
    • Moldova representative Natalia Gordienko wore a flashy bikini during her 2006 performance. Her 2021 comeback is downplayed from her previous entry.
    • The Cuban-Spanish actress and singer Chanel Terrero, who represented Spain in 2022, has put up a spectacular load of fanservicery during the performance of her entry "SloMo", as well with her backing dancers of male and female gender all showing off their own. The perfectly-choreographed dance break with some booty highlighting and the lyrics ("booty hypnotic, make you want more") help boost the image.
  • My Country Tis of Thee That I Sting: The opening act of the second semi final of the 2022 contest was one of the hosts making fun of Italian stereotypes.
  • My Greatest Second Chance: Dima Bilan finished second to Finland's Lordi in 2006. Two years later, he went one better and gave Russia its first Eurovision victory.
  • Not Staying for Breakfast:
    • Basically the subject of Estonia’s entry in 2015, though it's framed as the fall-out of a fight in an established couple and not a hook-up.
    • Inverted with "The Wrong Place" by Hooverphonic, Belgium's 2021 entry: the hook-up insisting on staying is what makes the narrator realise she had made a mistake in leading him up.
  • Overly Long Gag: Mr. Lordi returned to present Finland's votes on the 2012 edition. And then this happened.
  • Poe's Law: Dustin the Turkey, singing a deliberately terrible dance song about how terrible Eurovision has gotten and how Ireland have gone from being the group-to-beat to being also-rans. It might have gone over a little better if the lyrics had been a little more coherent and had Dustin had a less annoying voice. Most people thought it was simply a shit song — as many commentators only half-jokingly noted, it's not like Dustin was significantly worse than a lot of actual Eurovision performances.
  • Precision F-Strike:
    • Italy's 2021 entry — "Zitti e buoni", by Måneskin — originally included the lyrics "vi conviene toccarvi i coglioni" (you better grab your balls — an Italian phrase roughly equivalent to "you better touch wood") and "non sa di che cazzo parla" (they don't know what the fuck they're talking about), which got changed respectively to "vi conviene non fare più errori" (you better stop making mistakes) and "non sa di che cosa parla" (they don't know what they're talking about) to comply with Eurovision's rules on profanity. However, after securing their win, singer Damiano David dropped the filter and sang the original lyric during their encore.
    • Singers have to censor any swear words when performing, but that doesn't stop the audience from shouting them. This notably occurs during Latvia 2022 and Serbia 2023 with the words "pussy" and "bitch", respectively.
    • However, Italy's 2023 entry contained the lyrics "E ci siamo fottuti ancora una notte" ("And we fucked again one night," although it could also mean "we swindled/robbed each other"). Marco Mengoni sang the unexpurgated lyrics in his performance, and nobody seems to have gotten upset.
  • Really 17 Years Old: Belgium in 1986 sent Sandra Kim, at the tender age of 13.5 years old. She pretended to be 14. And, of course, won it!note 
  • Real Men Wear Pink: France's 2007 entry, Amour à la Francaise by Les Fatal Picards. Iceland's Pollapönk, from 2014, is a group made of middle-aged men who always dress in bright-coloured suits: blue, yellow, red and pinknote .
  • Refuge in Audacity: Some acts become popular because they're so ridiculously over the top it's hard not to enjoy them. The champions of this have to be German act Dschinghis Khan singing a song about Genghis Khan in Israel and managing to reach fourth place.
  • Regional Riff: Frequently. Spain and Turkey are among the most prolific (ab/)users of the trope.
  • Rule of Three: 2011 had three hosts. The result? Three consecutive reminders that you cannot vote for your own country.
  • The Runner-Up Takes It All: Since the change in the voting procedure in 2016 — which saw each country get two sets of points to award, one by a panel of judges, the other by the public — this has happened twice:
    • The first occurrence was the first time this was used (2016): the jury vote was won by Australia and the public vote by Russia, which finished 4th and 5th in the other vote. By finishing second in both sets of votes, Ukraine were able to win.
    • The second occurrence was in 2019: North Macedonia won the jury votenote , with Norway winning the public vote. Both songs scored lowly in the other set of votes (12th and 18th respectively), whilst the Netherlands scored well enough in both sets (3rd in the jury vote, 2nd in the public vote) to win.
    • In some contests, the runner-up has managed to completely outshine the winner.
      • The ultimate example of this would probably be the 1958 Italian entry, Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu. It placed third behind France and Switzerland, but it was a massive commercial success and became the only Eurovision song ever to win a Grammy and the only non-English song ever to win Song and Record of the Year. In 2005, as part of the 50th anniversary celebration of Eurovision, it was voted the second best ever song in the history of the contest. Needless to say, France and Switzerland weren't there.
      • Two other non-winning entries made this list, the Spanish 1973 entry and the British 1968 entry. The winners of their years didn't.
      • Gina G may have only finished 8th in 1996 when competing for the UK with “Ooh Aah…Just a Little Bit,” but the song went on to completely out sell any other ESC song from that year, managed to crack the US Billboard, and is still receives airplay nowadays.
      • While the 2007 winner Molitva is still well appreciated, the runner up Dancing Lasha Tumbai is considered one of the most iconic entries ever and outsold the winner (and any other song of its year) by more than double.
      • 2018 and 2019 provide zig-zagging. Respective runners up Fuego by Eleni Foureira and Soldi by Mahmood (both well known acts) are better regarded by the fandom and more successful in Europe, but their respective conquerors Toy by Netta and Arcade by Duncan Laurence (both of whom were largely or totally unknown pre victory) both became TikTok viral and therefore got more streams in the longer term.
      • 20th placing Nu Folk ballad Snap by Rosa Linn, which was Armenia’s 2022 entry, earned a major TikTok viral success to become one of the most streamed entries ever, this in a year when both the winner (albeit because of their circumstances) and runner up (already well known via the video sharing site) also had clear success.
      • 2023 had Sweden send Loreen for a second time, and she ended up winning. The runner-up, a brightly colored, Genre-Busting, acid trip — "Cha Cha Cha" by Käärijä of Finland — won the televote by a huge margin (133 points) over Sweden and is widely regarded by many Eurovision fans to be "the true winner" that year.
    • The 2022 Australia national final became this for the 2023 contest twice over. The 2022 victor Sheldon Riley placed 15th after his ballad "Not the Same" did well with the juries but fared poorly in the televote. Not only did the second-placed Voyager go on to finish higher the following year at 9th position (albeit also exhibiting a lopsided pattern in favour of the jury vote) but Andrew Lambrou, who came in at seventh in the same national final, also finished in a higher position in 2023, snagging 12th for Cyprus.
    S-W 
  • The Scapegoat:
    • People from the UK tend to blame the poor scores their songs generally receive on politics. This can at times take on an edge of Hypocritical Humour, since the UK is also notable for not taking the contest particularly seriously, as can often be reflected in the entries they submit. Claims of neighborly voting among Eastern European countries are also rendered null when they give and receive points from Ireland.
      • The UK actually finished 2nd in 2022, and topped the jury vote, meaning that a wide range of different European countries gave them points (Including getting top marks from European political powerhouses Germany and France, who traditionally hate them), making any arguments about it being political null and void, especially considering that in the run up to the contest, the British government were threatening to tear up part of their Brexit deal with The EU. It helps that the entry was actually decent, and all it did was to prove that when the UK actually takes the contest seriously, then other countries are willing to vote for them in huge numbers.
    • The Swedes are even worse. Every year has sparked an outcry against political or bugged voting and since they started to slip from getting to the top five every year to finally being eliminated in the semi-finals, a demand to boycott or shut down the entire competition has become something of a tradition. We're talking about the biggest newspapers here, not just individual grumbling. Beats the UK in Hypocritical Humor as well, since they have a tendency to make points rain on their fellow Scandinavian countries. Fortunately for the Swedes, they would clinch a victory in 2012, and again in 2015... and again in 2023.
    • Same thing in Poland. Every single year their reason for not getting to the finals was that "Nobody likes us in Europe". After which, hundreds of declarations that "we won't send a contestant next year" can be heard. But they do send them anyway. Averted somehow in 2014 — this time they blamed their score on the judges who gave them a lot less points that the viewers (if only the viewers' points counted, Poland would have a 5th place instead of 14th!) and on Conchita Wurst who stole their spotlight with the help of her beard, Pimped-Out Dress and way better song than "We are Slavic". One political party even announced that (if they were to be elected, of course) they would have a plan to change the Eurovision voting system so Poland won't be cheated out by the judges ever again (although the following 3 entries also got bad jury scores once in the final, notably 2016). They said exactly the same words before 2009, when only viewers' votes were taken into account and Polish songs were always getting low (or very low) scores. And again, it was because of "politics".
    • Noticeably averted by Portugal, whose lacklustre entries were the reason for their absence in 2016, so that they could see if they could come up with a new format for their national contest (Festival RTP da Canção) that didn't produce absolute garbage. It was not marketed as a selection show for ESC when it was held as such when Portugal returned for 2017. This strategy clearly paid off as Portugal ended up winning that year's ESC, the first time the country had ever done so.
  • Scenery Porn: There are a lot of gratuitous tourism adverts for the host country.
    • Azerbaijan combined this with Food Porn in one of the pre-performance vignettes in 2012.
  • Self-Deprecation:
  • Sensual Slavs: In 2014, Poland's Donatan & Cleo presented a somewhat fanservicey staging of a song extolling the charming beauty of Slavic girls.
  • Serious Business: Ever since ABBA soared to international success, Sweden has been taking the contest very seriously, so much so that Melodifestivalen, the national selection contest, is the highest-rated television series in Sweden, and in some years it garners even greater viewership than Eurovision itself.
  • Shout-Out:
  • Silly Love Songs: In copious amounts. This trope reached its apotheosis in 2014 with host Denmark's entry "Cliche Love Song".
  • Sixth Ranger: In less than 20 years the number of countries that have participated has more than doubled. Of the 26 countries that have joined in the last 20 years, the vast majority hadn't taken part before because they hadn't existed beyond being parts of Yugoslavia or the Soviet Union. The earliest instance of a semifinal occurred in 1993, in the form of a special entitled "Kvalifikacija za Millstreet" (Qualification for Millstreet). Held after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, it featured seven countries new to Eurovision: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia. Sadly, none of the 3 countries that went to the 1993 contest (Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia) placed in the top 10, though Bosnia got 12 points from Turkey. The whole semi can be viewed here.
  • Small Name, Big Ego: Russia's Alexey Vorobyov accused Sweden's Eric Saade of being a cheap rip-off of him. Despite not being famous in Sweden (he wouldn't have heard about him), having Swedish dancers, an Swedish choreographer, and a Swedish songwriter..
  • Solo Duet: Jacques Houdek (Croatia 2017) did two different voices in his song: an operatic tenor voice in Italian and a more high-pitched, poppy voice.
  • Spectacular Spinning: A not so uncommon feature of some stagings is placing the artist and/or the dancers on a rotating platform or a lazy Susan. Australia 2017, Poland 2019 and, in 2021 alone, San Marino, Moldova and Bulgaria all featured spinning at different speeds. Ukraine in 2014 iconically made the spinning vertical, by including in their stage show a man doing tricks with a giant hamster wheel.
  • Spin-Off: There have been several major spin-offs of the competition.
    • Since 1982, the EBU has organized the biennial Eurovision Young Musicians competition, inspired by the BBC's Young Musician of the Year, which features classical performers under the age of 18 playing pieces for a jury.
    • A more direct spin-off is the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. It was patterned off a junior spin-off of Denmark's Dansk Melodi Grand Prix, which itself gained a pan-Nordic version known as MGP Nordic (held between Denmark, Norway and Sweden in 2002). The success of this then expanded the idea into a pan-European version, much like its adult counterpart. However, MGP Nordic did return from 2006 to 2009 when the Nordic countries jointly pulled out due to allegations that the JESC was treating contestants unethically. Each country who participates starts with 12 points already instead of 0 in the voting, just to keep the kids happy. In 2011, these free twelves were delivered by a teenaged presenter in Australia (Yes, they watch it there too, and have competed since becoming a senior ESC contender!). invoked The winner has talked to the presenters of the adult contest in all of its interval acts since 2014.
    • There was also the short-lived Eurovision Dance Contest, which was essentially a pan-European version of Dancing with the Stars/Strictly Come Dancing (especially in the 2008 edition, which switched to celebrity/professional pairings, much like said franchise). It did not fare well at all; only two editions occurred (2007 and 2008, both hosted by the BBC in London and Glasgow, Scotland). Few of the freestyle dances had the supposed national connection and about a dozen involved the removal of clothing. The first winner was Finland, with Poland winning the 2008 contest. A 2009 edition in Azerbaijan was planned, but the entire idea got canned due to a "serious lack of interest." Azerbaijan eventually won the right to host the real thing.
    • 2017 saw the debut of the biennial Eurovision Choir of the Year competition.
    • Also in the works — before its cancellation — was the Eurovision Asia Song Contest; in the grand ESC tradition, actually being from Asia would not have been a requirement, as it was targeting the larger Asia-Pacific region (which includes Australia and New Zealand — the inaugural edition was to be hosted by Gold Coast, Australia).
    • After years of rumors about bringing Eurovision to the United States of America, the American Song Contest was finally announced to debut in 2022, developed by NBC, with the proposed idea being that all 50 states plus Washington D.C. and the Overseas Territories would duke it out. note 
  • Springtime for Hitler: Since the nation whose entrant wins has to host it the next year at its own expense, an undertaking that might oblige less prosperous countries to sell their national monuments on eBay, it's probable that many of the participants aren't playing to win. In fact the winner doesn't have to host it the next year, though turning it down would involve a certain loss of face. Apparently for some nations, looking like complete fools is the lesser of two evils.
    • In 1972 Monaco was unable to host due to lack of resources, so the contest was held in the UK instead.
    • This also happened in 1974. Luxembourg, having won both the 1972 and 1973 contests, declined to go to the expense of hosting it two years in a row, resulting in that year's Eurovision taking place in Brighton, England.
    • Since Sweden withdrew from the 1976 competition in fear of winning and having to host the Contest again, the rules changed so all participants have to pay an entry fee which goes to the hosting country.
    • Norwegian state broadcaster NRK had to sell its broadcast rights to The World Cup in order to finance the 2010 edition of the event in Oslo.
    • Parodied in an episode of the defining Irish comedy show, Father Ted, where Ireland deliberately had Ted and Dougal represent Ireland in "Eurosong" with their terrible song "My Lovely Horse", in order to save on the costs of having to host it again (the episode itself having been aired in 1996, just after Ireland had won three consecutive contests).
    • In real life, Ireland's entry for 2008 was the infamous "Dustin the Turkey", a hideous turkey puppet singing in a deliberately off-key voice about how much Eurovision sucks and generally taking a lot of shots at the other entries, their nations of origin, Eurovision's perceived decay in quality over the years, and the nation of Ireland. Naturally, he didn't make it past the semi-finals.
    • Sweden and Portugal have won in recent years after choosing to prioritise their selection show for domestic music rather than ESC.
  • Stealing the Credit: If the COVID-19 outbreak hadn’t put the kibosh on it, and providing it had made it through the semi final, and then probably finished higher than the U.K. in the Grand Final, then The BBC was all ready to claim that the 2020 Norway entry would have been a success for the Brits, despite the fact that the song had no U.K input whatsoever, because one of the Norwegian co-writers of the song, Christian Ingebrigtsen, is a member of British boyband A1.
  • Stripperiffic: Many acts, gender notwithstanding.
  • Stripping Snag: In 1985, hostess Lill Lindfors's skirt snagged on some scenery and tore off while she was walking out. After a brief display of panic, she revealed this was an Invoked Trope when she lowered part of her top, turning it into a dress.
  • Stylistic Suck: The one and only "Dustin the Turkey", Ireland's attempt in 2008 at riling up all the other countries with what was surely an attempt at making the absolute worst Eurovision competitor of all time: an ugly puppet turkey with an incredibly obnoxious nasally voice singing a bland and derivative song making fun of everyone else there. Dustin didn't make it very far, though, when a lot of viewers took his act at face value rather than as a parody, since he wasn't really that extreme by the standards of Eurovision.
  • Take That!: Not one but two during the 2018 voting sequence: Latvia’s spokesperson initially announced that their twelve points went to Kanye West (possibly a reference to his tendency to take the stage in indignation at awards shows if his preferred artist gets snubbed, most notably at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards), while Greece’s awarded twelve points to La La Land before saying that "...we aren't at the Oscars!"note 
  • Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Two of the Netherlands's hosts in 2021, Jan Smit and Nikkie de Jager (aka nikkietutorials).
  • Took a Level in Badass:
    • Bulgaria debuted in Eurovision in 2005, only making it to the final once in their first nine participations. When they returned from a two-year hiatus in 2016, they finally established themselves as solid contenders, with Poli Genova scoring a then-record fourth placenote , and Kristian Kostov topping it the next year with an impressive second-place finish.
    • To a lesser extent, this also applies to the Czech Republic: their first three entries between 2007 and 2009 gained a total of ten points — the last entry of which scored nil points — before withdrawing from the Contest. They returned in 2015 with slightly better fortunes before finally qualifying in 2016 (although they finished second last). They failed to qualify again in 2017 before their massive improvement in results: 2018 saw then finish third in the semifinal before sixth in the final. (There were some doubts about him even performing — he injured his back performing a backflip in the first dress rehearsal and was temporarily unable to walk. He then performed a frontflip in the final.) They then qualified again the following year, finishing second in the semifinal and 11th in the final. While 2021 saw another non-qualification, they were back in the finals in 2022 (finishing 22nd) and 2023 (earning their second Top 10 placement).
  • Triumphant Reprise: It is a contest tradition to have the winning performer/s sing their winning entry to close out the show. Due to the short turnaround time between the announcement and the performance some of the more elaborate special effects have to be skipped for the reprise. The producers usually make up for this by dropping confetti instead. Some artists have taken the reprise as an opportunity to change things up, such as 1982 winner Nicole singing in four different languages, 2017 winner Salvador Sobral turning the song into a duet along his song's composer and sister Luisa, just like they did after they won the Portuguese national selection, or 2021 winners Måneskin singing the uncensored lyrics to "Zitti e buoni".
  • Troll: No, we aren't talking about entries with entertaingly bad quality, we mean entries performed by artists who outright insults the show itself for its voting system and clichés with heavy satire, usually going by the "vote for us!" message. So far there have been a few notable examples:
    • In 2006, there was Lithuania's "We are The Winners (of Eurovision)", which consist of 30-something men doing baby-like chanting of the title. Really. Given how hilariously bad it is, it was most certainly intentional. Notably, this act got Lithuania its best Eurovision placing ever, finishing sixth in the final, the first of the country's only three Top 10 finishes — the other ones were Donny Montell's ninth place in 2016 and The Roop's eighth place in 2021.
    • The same year, 2006, has Iceland's "Congratulations", performed by fictional character Silvia Night. While baring slightly better in melody, it doubles in offense, as the lyrics contains "I'm no eurotrash freak", and making fun of "golden showers" and other clichés in Eurovision. The over the top acting is what gives the satire away; however, back then it wasn't recognized as such, and was only booed.
    • In 2008, there's Ireland's Dustin the Turkey, "Irelande Douze Pointe" (sic). Do we even need to say anything here? Just look at it!
    • The Ur-Example has to be the 1980 entry from Belgium by Telex, called "Eurovision", which contained a lot of Eurovision cliches set to the most bored sounding synth-pop ever. They wanted to finish last but Portugal gave them dix points in spite. Interestingly, Telex are actually considered one of the best examples of early synth-pop, so they might also be the Ur-Example of jokey slumming in the contest.
    • In 2012, there's Montenegro's Euro Neuro. No melody at all, just a nonsensical "rap" based on silly rhymes but it's actually a huge Take That! to the Eurozone, and the lyrics also contains "I got no ambition for high position in competition", as a clear reference to this contest.
  • Ugly Slavic Women: During the 2012 Contest, the Russian entry included a group of older Genre Savvy women dressed up as grandmothers, pushing the stereotype up to eleven (although the adorable demanor of the ladies, who were beloved by both public and their fellow contestants, made them fall squarely in Ugly Cute territory).
  • Victorious Loser: UK's 2021 representant James Newman, who despite getting 0 points (the first one with the new pointing system) left the contest with a smile in his face (and even celebrated being part of it).
  • Waistcoat of Style: Alexander Rybak, the winner of 2009, so much that sometimes it seems he doesn't own any other clothes. He returned with a similar fashion and style 9 years later.
  • Watch It Stoned: For some viewers, drinking games are a big part of their Eurovision viewing experience.
  • What the Hell Is That Accent?:
  • A Wild Rapper Appears!:
    • One of the first instances is the 2008 Croatia entry, which is otherwise a normal ballad sung by Kraljevi Ulice, until 75 Cents comes up.
    • Jala's contribution to the 2016 Bosnia & Herzegovina entry can be summed up as this: comes out of nowhere, drops a rap verse in Bosnian with very dark or plain bizarre lyrics such as "as soon as we're sober I know we won't start a family" sounding rather angry, disappears again.
    • Hungary in 2017, when Joci Papai puts a morbid rap verse into his own religious ballad Origo.
    • German Jenifer Brening ("it's me Jenny B/what you get is what you see" and "if they dissing you on twitter/ don't give up/don't be a quitter") in her duet with Maltese Jessica Muscat for San Marino in 2018.
    • Though only 3 lines long, and with a clear message, Samanta Tina's in "Still Breathing" was incredibly random.
      • Athena Manoukian the same (cancelled) year, and Manizha the following year, alternated singing and rapping in a very unpredictable but coherent manner, but which delighted the fanbase.
    • Also incredibly random was the appearance of Flo Rida in the Sammarinese entry in 2021.
  • Witty Banter:
    • Particularly painful when the ones doing it are expressing themselves in a tongue which is not their native one and are not gifted at acting. One notable example of this was when Ukraine first hosted it in 2005, and the most internationally famous locals they could dredge up were the Klitschko brothers (a pair of very good boxers).
    • Everything in 2001 except the songs and voting was done in rhyming couplets.
  • Wolf Man: The 2022 Norwegian entry were a masked and anonymous duo called Subwoolfer, who performed wearing yellow wolf masks covering their identities. Cue Wild Mass Guessing as to who were actually underneath the masks. (It was revealed that they were Ben Adams from British/Norwegian boyband A1 and 2003 Norwegian Idol runner up Gaute Ormåsen in 2023.)
  • Word Salad Lyrics: With many countries wishing to have their songs in English, it's an inevitability that songs whose writers and artists aren't very fluent in English will show up. Hell, they even show up when the writers and singers are fluent in English, or even have it as a first language.
  • Writing Around Trademarks: Mentioning trademarks in the songs is forbidden in the contest rules, so San Marino had to rewrite and retitle their planned entry for 2012, "Facebook Uh, Oh, Oh", into "The Social Network Song (Oh-Oh, Uh, Uh, Oh)" to avoid getting disqualified. Belarus also had to drop a Google Maps allusion in 2014, and in 2017, Italy had to cut down the length of their song and they killed two birds with one stone by axing the second verse, which contained a mention of Chanel.
    • The first instance of this was in 1987 when Melodifestivalen winner "Fyra Bugg och en Coca-Cola"note  by Lotta Engberg was changed to "Boogaloo" to remove references to the drink company and Bugg, a chewing gum company.
    • This was inverted in 2016 after several countries complained that Australia's entry broke this rule by mentioning FaceTime, the Apple telephone product. The EBU rejected the complaint, saying that the lyrics presented it as two words — i.e. "face time" — rather than one.

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Italian Hand Gestures

During a break between performances in the Turin 2022 final, the hosts take a moment to discuss and demonstrate a few typical Italian hand gestures.

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