The Eurovision Song Contest opened in Vienna, Austria, on Tuesday with the first semifinal unfolding amid a boycott by five countries over Israel’s inclusion, while police from across Austria and neighboring Germany were deployed across the capital to keep the spectacle moving on schedule.
Who Gets to Stay, Who Gets Shut Out
Ten countries, including favorite Finland and Israel, won places in Saturday’s final after the first day of competition in the 70th Eurovision Song Contest, while five nations were sent home. The contest’s official language is unity, but the week began with a very different message: Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Iceland are boycotting to protest Israel’s inclusion. That split hangs over the 70th anniversary edition, even as host city Vienna has been dressed up in hearts and the contest’s “United by Music” motto.
Thousands of fans from across Europe and beyond packed the Wiener Stadthalle arena for the first of two semifinals, with some wearing flags painted on their faces or clothes in national colors and others wearing sequins and spangles. The crowd came for a pop pageant, but the event’s political fault lines were impossible to miss. Israeli singer Noam Bettan was met with shouts of protests amid cheers in the auditorium when he performed the rock ballad “Michelle,” and still advanced to the final as one of the 10 acts voted through.
Security, Control, and the Price of the Show
Security is tight across Vienna, with police from across Austria deployed in the capital and support from forces in neighboring Germany. Awareness of risk is high after a 21-year-old Austrian man accused of pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group pleaded guilty to plotting to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna in 2024. The apparatus of order is visible everywhere: the contest goes on under heavy policing, while ordinary people are asked to absorb the atmosphere of threat as part of the price of mass entertainment.
The first semifinal also produced the usual winners and losers of a system built on selection and elimination. Finland, the favorite on betting markets, made the cut with “Liekinheitin” (“Flamethrower”), a mashup of pop singer Pete Parkkonen’s anguished vocals and violinist Linda Lampenius’ fiery fiddling. Joining them in the final are Greece’s Akylas with the party-rap track “Ferto” (“Bring It”); Serbian goth metal band Lavina with “Kraj Mene”; Moldovan folk-rapper Satoshi with “Viva, Moldova!”; and “Andromeda” by Croatian female ensemble Lelek. Soulful Polish singer Alicja, Lithuanian performer Lion Ceccah, Swedish singer Felicia and Belgium’s Essyla also made the final.
The Money Behind the Curtain
The U.K., France, Germany and Italy automatically qualify because they are among the contest’s biggest funders. Austria, last year’s winner, gets a place in the final as host country. The structure is not exactly subtle: those with money and institutional leverage get guaranteed access, while everyone else has to fight through the contest’s filters.
Estonia, Georgia, Montenegro, Portugal and San Marino were eliminated, despite a guest appearance by 1980s icon Boy George on singer Senhit’s San Marino song, “Superstar.” Ten more finalists will be chosen in a second semifinal on Thursday. The contest’s organizers say it was watched by 166 million people around the world last year, and the five-country boycott is a revenue and viewership blow to the event.
Eurovision has long been a forum for national rivalry, but in recent years it has struggled to separate pop from politics. Russia was expelled in 2022 after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The 2024 contest in Malmo, Sweden, and last year’s event in Basel, Switzerland, saw pro-Palestinian protests calling for Israel to be expelled over the conduct of its war against Hamas in Gaza and allegations it ran a rule-breaking marketing campaign to get votes for its contestant.
The European Broadcasting Union, which runs Eurovision, has toughened voting rules in response to the vote-rigging allegations, halving the number of votes per person to 10 and tightening safeguards against “suspicious or coordinated voting activity.” But the EBU declined to kick Israel out, and five countries announced in December that they would not participate this year.
Several pro-Palestinian demonstrations are planned during Eurovision week, including a musical event dubbed No Stage for Genocide. Its backers urged Eurovision performers to pull out of the competition. Congolese-Austrian activist Patrick Bongola said, “I think it is a moral obligation for each and every artist to take action and step away from the competition.” Israel strongly denies committing genocide in Gaza. Demonstrations in support of the country’s participation are also planned this week in Vienna.
Jonathan Hendrickx, a media researcher at the University of Copenhagen, said any more boycotts will stress the structure of the contest and raise doubts about its future. He said, “They really are at their limits now, in terms of what they can handle with the current format.” Dean Vuletic, the author of “Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest,” said Eurovision can weather the latest storms. He said, “If you look at the history of Eurovision, it’s gone through so many crises, so many political challenges, so many geopolitical changes in Europe, and it’s always managed to survive.”