Final 3 May 1997 Director Ian McGarry | Conductor Frank McNamara Executive supervisor Marie-Claire Vionnet | |
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Venue Point Theatre
Dublin, Ireland Presenter(s) Carrie Crowley
Ronan Keating | ||
The Eurovision Song Contest 1997, was the 42nd Eurovision Song Contest and it was held at the Point Theatre Dublin, Ireland, on 3 May 1997. Carrie Crowley and Boyzone member Ronan Keating were the presenters of the show. Twenty-five countries took part in the 1997 Contest, which saw Italy return after a three-year absence, along with Denmark, Germany, Hungary, and Russia, who last took part in the 1995 Contest, despite having taken part in the non-televised 1996 pre-qualifying round in which they failed to qualify and therefore were absent. Belgium, Finland, and Slovakia withdrew from the contest due to the relegation rule. The United Kingdom won the competition, thanks to Katrina and the Waves, (Katrina Leskanich) making it the second time that the British won the Eurovision on Irish soil.
Contents
Location
Ireland hosted the contest for the fourth time in five years after winning the 1996 Contest in Oslo. Dublin was chosen to be the host city, making it the sixth time that the Eurovision Song Contest was staged in the Irish capital. The venue for the contest was the Point Theatre located on the North Wall Quay of the River Liffey, amongst the Dublin Docklands. The theatre previously hosted the 1994 and 1995 contests.
Format
After the controversy over the 1996 pre-qualifying round, the European Broadcasting Union introduced a new system for 1997: countries with the lowest average scores over the previous four years would be excluded from the 1997 contest, and those with the lowest averages over the previous five years would be excluded from future contests (save that every country so excluded for one year would automatically be allowed to participate the following year), with so many countries being omitted as would reduce the number of participants each year to 25.
Israel declined to participate, as the Contest was held on its Holocaust Remembrance Day, granting a reprieve to Bosnia and Herzegovina, which would otherwise have been excluded owing to its low point average over the previous four years. RTÉ once again produced a highly spectacular show, with a stage that had a smaller performance space for the artists than in previous years. This was the third Eurovision set to be designed by Paula Farrell, who had previously been involved with the 1988 and 1994 contests.
There was a wide array of different styles this year. Denmark brought a rap song, Croatia came with their version of the Spice Girls and Sweden brought a mid-1980s style boy band. The music was in general more modern than before, and for the first time in six years, an up-tempo song won. This year, televoting was tested in five countries: Austria, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The results of the televoting countries were, in some cases, different from those that used a jury. Iceland received 16 of its 18 points from these five countries.
Also, for the first time in Eurovision history, there was a country where not one, but two spokespeople gave votes - France. Television reporter Frédéric Ferrer and 1977 Eurovision winner Marie Myriam each took turns at giving results from that country. Long-time Irish conductor Noel Kelehan was not the host conductor this year, the duty being fulfilled by Frank McNamara. However, from this year, entrants were allowed to use singback without orchestra accompaniment, and in 1999, the orchestra would be abolished completely.
Returning artists
Alma Čardžić returned for Bosnia and Herzegovina after last representing the nation in 1994. Maarja-Liis Ilus and Şebnem Paker both returned for a second-consecutive year representing Estonia and Turkey respectively.
Results
1.^ ^ Contained some lyrics in English.Scoreboard
Each country had a jury that awarded 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points for their top ten songs, or a televote, where the top ten most voted for songs were awarded the 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points. Iceland got most of its 18 points from the 5 countries that used televoting. Ireland was ostensibly the best scoring country across the televoting countries, except they were able to score points from all 5 televoting countries. The United Kingdom was only eligible to receive points from 4 of them, since they couldn't vote for themselves. In fact, the UK received 12 points from all the other televoting countries except Germany, from whom they received 10 points: in other words, the UK earned 46 of 48 possible televote points that year; Ireland earned 47 of 60 possible televote points—including their only 12 from the UK.
12 points
Below is a summary of all 12-point in the final:
Winners
Katrina and the Waves, (with lead vocalist Katrina Leskanich) representing the United Kingdom, were the winners of the contest with the song "Love Shine a Light", written by that band's lead guitarist Kimberley Rew, and Marc Roberts from Republic of Ireland came second with "Mysterious Woman". Despite being the runner-up, it remarkably received only one 12-point score, which came from the United Kingdom. The UK spokesman Colin Berry remarked: "You're going to like this one: Ireland, twelve points!" causing Terry Wogan to reply: "Well, tit for tat!" The winning song scored an unprecedented 227 points; it received points from all participating countries, including five sets of 10 points and a record-breaking ten sets of the maximum 12 points. "Love Shine a Light" is still regarded as one of the most successful Eurovision winners, and was the closing song in the medleys that opened the 50th anniversary show "Congratulations" in Copenhagen in 2005, and the ESC 2006 semi-final in Athens. With this victory, the United Kingdom has five Eurovision wins and it is to date the country's last win in the Contest.
Barbara Dex Award
For the first time, the fansite House of Eurovision presented the Barbara Dex Award, a humorous award given to the worst dressed artist each year in the contest. It is named after the Belgian artist, Barbara Dex, who came last in the 1993 contest, in which she wore her own self designed dress. House of Eurovision would continue to provide the Barbara Dex Award until 2016, when another Eurovision fansite, songfestival.be, took the reigns of the award and will present it every year starting with the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest in Ukraine.
Debbie Scerri of Malta was the 1997 Barbara Dex Award winner.
Voting and spokespersons
The order in which each country announced their votes was determined by order of performance in the contest. The spokespersons are shown alongside each country.