The Eurovision Song Contest opened Tuesday in Vienna with heightened security costs and a five-nation boycott threatening the financial viability of Europe's premier music competition, as organizers grappled with political divisions that have transformed the 70th anniversary edition into a test of institutional resilience.
Ten countries, including favorite Finland and Israel, won places in the final after the first semifinal, while five nations were sent home after the first day of competition. Host city Vienna has been bedecked in hearts and the contest's "United by Music" motto for a week in which singers and bands from 35 countries will compete onstage for the continent's musical crown.
Boycott Reduces Participation to Lowest Since 2003
Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Iceland are boycotting to protest Israel's inclusion, delivering what organizers acknowledge is a revenue and viewership blow to an event that was watched by 166 million people around the world last year. The five countries announced their withdrawal in December, less than one year ago. The number of participants, at 35, is the lowest since 2003, despite Bulgaria, Moldova and Romania returning after skipping the event for artistic or financial reasons in recent years.
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. Israeli singer Noam Bettan was met with shouts of protests amid cheers in the auditorium when he performed the rock ballad "Michelle," but was one of 10 acts voted into Saturday's final.
Security Costs Escalate After Terror Plot
Security is tight across the city, 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, in the second year since that incident.
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.
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." Boy George and Senhit appeared on the turquoise carpet at the start of Eurovision Week at the Vienna town hall on Sunday, May 10, 2026, three days ago.
Voting Rule Changes Address Integrity Concerns
The European Broadcasting Union, which runs Eurovision, has toughened voting rules in response to vote-rigging allegations from last year's event in Basel, Switzerland, in the first year since that contest, halving the number of votes per person to 10 and tightening safeguards against "suspicious or coordinated voting activity." The 2024 contest in Malmo, Sweden, in the second year since that event, saw pro-Palestinian protests that called 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.
But the EBU declined to kick Israel out, spurring five countries to announce in December that they would not participate this year. Israel strongly denies committing genocide in Gaza. Several pro-Palestinian demonstrations are planned during Eurovision week, including a musical event dubbed No Stage for Genocide. 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." Demonstrations in support of the country's participation are also planned this week in Vienna.
Ten more finalists will be chosen in a second semifinal on Thursday. 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.
Institutional Sustainability Questioned
Long a forum for good-natured and sometimes more pointed national rivalries, Eurovision has found it hard to separate pop and politics in recent years. Russia was expelled in 2022, in the fourth year since that action, after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 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."
Associated Press writer Sam McNeil in Brussels contributed to this report.
Why This Matters:
The five-nation boycott represents a significant fiscal challenge to Eurovision's business model, which depends on broad participation from member broadcasters and the advertising revenue generated by mass viewership across the continent. With participation at its lowest level in more than two decades and security costs escalating following credible terror threats, the European Broadcasting Union faces pressure to maintain the contest's financial viability while managing political divisions that threaten to fragment its institutional base. The tightening of voting rules demonstrates an attempt to preserve institutional integrity in response to allegations of manipulation, but the fundamental question of whether a cultural institution can remain commercially sustainable while navigating geopolitical fault lines remains unresolved. The contest's ability to attract automatic funding from major economies like the U.K., France, Germany and Italy provides some stability, but continued boycotts could erode the broad European participation that justifies the event's scale and cost.