Supriya Ghosh (Editor)

Eurovision Song Contest 2015

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Director
  
Kathrin Zechner

Eurovision Song Contest 2015

Semi-final 1
  
19 May 2015 (2015-05-19)

Semi-final 2
  
21 May 2015 (2015-05-21)

Final
  
23 May 2015 (2015-05-23)

Venue
  
Wiener Stadthalle, Vienna, Austria

Presenter(s)
  
Mirjam Weichselbraun Alice Tumler Arabella Kiesbauer

The Eurovision Song Contest 2015 was the 60th anniversary edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest musical event. The contest took place in Vienna, Austria, following Austrian Conchita Wurst's victory in the 2014 edition. This was the second time that Austria hosted the contest; the 1967 edition being the first (also hosted in Vienna). The 2015 contest consisted of two semi-finals, which took place on 19 and 21 May, and a final, held on 23 May 2015. The shows were presented by Mirjam Weichselbraun, Alice Tumler and Arabella Kiesbauer while Conchita Wurst was hosting the green room. Forty countries participated in the contest, with Australia making a guest appearance, and Cyprus, the Czech Republic, and Serbia returning. Ukraine, however, announced their withdrawal due to financial and political reasons around the Ukrainian crisis.

Contents

Once all the votes had been announced, based on 50% jury and 50% televoting, Sweden won the contest for the sixth time, with Måns Zelmerlöw's song "Heroes". Sweden became the first country to win the contest twice in the current format, and this was the country's second win in four years and the 21st century. Italy won the viewers voting with Russia in second place, and Sweden in third place. Sweden won the jury voting, with Latvia in second place and Russia in third place. This is the first time since the juries were reintroduced alongside the televoting in 2009 that the winner didn't place first in the televoting. For the first time, the top four of the contest all scored 200 points or better. Russia's entry "A Million Voices" became the first non-winning Eurovision song to score over 300 points. Austria and Germany became the first countries since 2003 to score no points in the final. Austria is also the first host country to score nul points. The 2015 contest also saw the best ever result for Montenegro since its independence, and the Czech Republic. Also the top two countries of this contest were the same as the top two countries in the 2012 contest, being Sweden and Russia. Over 197 million viewers worldwide watched the contest, beating the 2014 viewing figures by 2 million.

Venue

The event took place in Vienna, Austria, with the venue being the Wiener Stadthalle, after Austria won the right to host this edition of the Eurovision Song Contest for winning its previous 2014 edition with the song "Rise Like a Phoenix" performed by Conchita Wurst. The Wiener Stadthalle hosts the annual Erste Bank Open tennis tournament, along with many concerts and events throughout the year and has a capacity of approximately 16,000 attendees.

Bidding phase

After Austria's victory in the 2014 Contest, their delegation revealed the possibility of hosting the contest either in the capital city, Vienna, or in Salzburg. Vienna, Klagenfurt, Innsbruck, Lower Austria, Graz, Upper Austria, Burgenland, and Vorarlberg were all reportedly interested in hosting the contest; Salzburg pulled out of the bidding phase as the city was not able to meet the cost of the venue and promotion.

Vienna, considered the front-runner, had two venues in the phase: Wiener Stadthalle and the trade fair centre, Messe Wien, with capacities of up to 16,000 and 30,000 attendees respectively. Also in the race were Stadthalle Graz and Schwarzl Freizeit Zentrum, both located in the second largest city of Austria, Graz. With a maximum capacity of 30,000, the Wörthersee Stadium in Klagenfurt also joined the race; however, it would require the construction of a roof for the contest to be hosted there. Innsbruck also joined the race with Olympiahalle, which hosted ice hockey and figure skating at the 1964 and 1976 Winter Olympics. A fifth city, Linz, joined the race with Brucknerhaus, although the venue is not big enough for the contest. Being geographically close to Linz, Wels showed desire to host the event as well. Oberwart, with the Exhibition hall, and Vorarlberg, with the Vorarlberger Landestheater, were the latest cities to declare an interest.

On 29 May 2014, Austrian host public broadcaster ORF and the EBU released some requirements and details about the venue. ORF requested interested parties to respond by 13 June 2014.

  • The venue must be available for at least 6 to 7 weeks before the contest and one week after the conclusion of the contest.
  • The venue must not be open-air, but an air-conditioned building with a capacity of at least 10,000 and a minimum ceiling height of 15 metres (49 ft), insulated for sound and light.
  • The Green Room should be located in the arena or as near it as possible, with a capacity of 300.
  • An additional room at least 6,000 square metres (65,000 sq ft) in area, to house 2 catering stands, a viewing room, make-up rooms, wardrobe, and booths for approximately 50 commentators.
  • Separate offices to house the press centre, open between 11 and 24 May 2015, at least 4,000 square metres (43,000 sq ft) in area, with a capacity of at least 1,500 journalists.

    • After the deadline on 13 June 2014, ORF announced 12 venues interested in hosting the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest: ORF announced on 21 June 2014 that 3 cities (Vienna, Innsbruck, and Graz) had been short-listed in the final stage of the bidding process. On 6 August 2014, ORF announced the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna as the host venue. The contest was provisionally set to take place on 12, 14 and 16 May 2015, but the dates were later pushed back a week in order to accommodate the candidate cities.

    Key     Host venue

    Inclusive traffic lights in Vienna

    The city of Vienna introduced temporary new traffic signals for pedestrians on some streets, featuring same-sex couples holding hands or hugging. They were introduced as part of events connected to the theme of tolerance and inclusion in the lead-up to the Eurovision Song Contest.

    Traffic lights of the same – copyrighted – design of the kind "Ampelpärchen" (couples for traffic lights) followed before Christopher Street Days in June 2015 in Salzburg and Linz. In Salzburg the initiative SoHo and social democrate mayor Schaden promoted the change of the shape of the LED-lamps. The faceplates in Linz has been financed by sponsors driven by a Facebook-based initiative, but have been removed – without consent – by the new traffic minister of Linz of the party FPÖ in early December 2015.

    Format

    The competition consisted of two semi-finals and a final, a format which has been in use since 2008. The ten countries with the highest scores in each semi-final qualified to the final where they joined the host nation Austria, the five main sponsoring nations (known as the Big Five): France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, and Australia which was invited this year to commemorate the Contest's 60th anniversary.

    Each participating country had their own national jury, which consisted of five professional members of the music industry. Each member of a respective nation's jury was required to rank every song, except that of their own country. The voting results from each member of a particular nation's jury were combined to produce an overall ranking from first to last place. Likewise, the televoting results were also interpreted as a full ranking, taking into account the full televoting result rather than just the top ten. The combination of the jury's full ranking and the televote's full ranking produced an overall ranking of all competing entries. The song which scored the highest overall rank received 12 points, while the tenth-best ranked song received 1 point. In the event of a televoting failure (insufficient amount of votes/technical issues) or jury failure (technical issue/breach of rules), only one of the methods was used by each country. The 2015 contest was the final time that using the 50/50 system and the modern scoring system introduced in 1975 before the format being modified the following year.

    Semi-final allocation draw

    The draw that determined the semi-final allocation was held on 26 January 2015 at the Vienna Rathaus and hosted by Andi Knoll and Kati Bellowitsch. The participating countries, excluding the automatic finalists (hosts Austria, the Big Five and Australia), were split into five pots, based on voting patterns from the previous ten years. The pots were calculated by the televoting partner Digame and were as follows:

    Running order

    The final running order of the competing performances at the semi-finals and the final were decided by the producers of the show and approved by the EBU Executive Supervisor and the Reference Group, as had been done since the 2013 Contest, in contrast to a draw system for the contest's editions up until 2012 (apart from an ongoing draw method for the host country's direct position at the final). Hosts Austria drew their running order position on 16 March 2015 at the heads of delegations meeting, drawing starting position fourteen. The running order of the semi-finals were revealed on 23 March 2015. It was decided that Moldova would open the first semi-final and Lithuania the second. The running order for the grand final was announced shortly after the winner's press conference of the second semi-final, with Slovenia opening the show and Italy performing last.

    Graphic design

    On 31 July, the EBU released a new and revamped version of the generic logo as a celebration of the Eurovision Song Contest's 60th anniversary. On 11 September 2014, the slogan for the 2015 Contest was revealed to be "Building Bridges". The Director General of ORF, Alexander Wrabetz, commented in reference to the slogan: "With the song contest in Vienna, we want music to build bridges across borders, cultures and languages. In light of the unifying power of this great common European event, we invite all to build bridges and to join hands." One way of realising the slogan will be introduced in the beginning of the contest's final, as the competing artists will enter the arena via a structure which simulates a "magic bridge" of light. The graphic design of the contest was revealed by the EBU on 25 November 2014. The theme depicts a wave made up of many spheres, meant to symbolise diversity and the bridging of connections and encounters people experience on a constant basis. The colours of the theme intend to highlight individualism whilst simultaneously also representing the building of musical bridges and the diversity and variety of the artists, songs and audience. The theme art will be incorporated in all contest related developments such as crew uniforms, on-air graphics and merchandise.

    The postcards of this year's contest also witness the slogan "Building Bridges". In the postcards, each of the clips start with every contestant receiving an invitation to Austria in their home country. More specifically, the invitation is to a region in the host country with all nine Austrian states taking part. The story continues with the contestants making their way to one of the states where they have an individual task to fulfil. The tasks on the journeys vary from culture to sports, from economics to science and tradition to modern. For example, the Austrian postcard features The Makemakes participating in a fun run and in the San Marino postcard, Michele Perniola and Anita Simoncini attend an evening at the Vienna Opera Ball.

    In this year's contest, all the hashtags for participating countries incorporated the ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country codes for them which were displayed on the television screen, preceded by the names of the performing countries. For example, the first country in semifinal 1, Moldova, which would normally have been displayed as "01 Moldova"; became "01 Moldova #MDA" under the new changes. When the hashtags were used on Twitter, they became "hashflags", and appeared by the accompanying of a heart symbol with the flag of the country of the hashtag.

    Presenters

    On 19 December 2014, ORF announced that Mirjam Weichselbraun, Alice Tumler and Arabella Kiesbauer were the hosts of the 60th contest; the all-female trio was the first in history to host the contest. The winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2014, Conchita Wurst was also chosen as host of the green room.

    Weichselbraun is an actress and presenter known for hosting such productions as the annual Life Ball charity event, the Vienna Opera Ball and the TV show Dancing Stars since 2005, which has earned her the Austrian Romy television award in 2006 and 2008. Tumler is of Austrian-French descent and speaks five languages fluently: German, English, French, Italian and Spanish. She began her television career in 2004 with French music channel TraceTV, later working for Arte and France 3, and has hosted The KORA All Africa Music Awards in South Africa. Since 2013, she has hosted the talent show Die große Chance alongside Andi Knoll. Kiesbauer is a presenter, writer and actress who started her career at the Austrian public broadcaster in 1989, but is probably most known for presenting her own talk show in Germany from 1994 to 2004 on ProSieben. Since 2008 she has been an ambassador for integration in the team of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Integration. In 2013, she received the Golden Medal of the Republic of Austria for her commitment to tolerance and the fight against racism.

    National host broadcaster

    During an initial meeting between the host broadcaster ORF and the EBU in late May 2014, the representatives of the core organising team were selected. Edgar Böhm, who is the Head of Entertainment at ORF, was announced as the executive producer.

    Participants

    On 10 February 2015, it was announced that thirty-nine countries (forty including Australia) would participate in the 2015 Contest. Cyprus and Serbia returned after one-year absences, the Czech Republic returned after a five-year absence, while Ukraine withdrew. Australia made its debut as a guest participant. The deadline to apply for participation was 15 September 2014. Countries that applied had until 10 October 2014 to withdraw from participation without financial consequences.

    Invitation of Australia

    On 10 February 2015, the EBU announced that in honour of the 60th anniversary of Eurovision, it had invited Australia to participate in the finals of the contest, represented by SBS. SBS had been a long-time broadcaster of the event, which has had a large following in Australia. The Australian entry was placed directly in the grand final. Although it was considered a one-off event, if Australia were to win, SBS would have co-hosted the 2016 contest in a European host city of its choice. The EBU considered the possibility of similarly inviting countries to participate in future editions of the contest. Australia's participation brought the number of the finalists up to 27, the highest number of entries in a final in the contest's history.

    Returning artists

    Inga Arshakyan, who was part of Genealogy in 2015, represented Armenia in 2009, collaborating with her sister as part of Inga and Anush.

    Michele Perniola and Anita Simoncini both previously represented San Marino at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest: Perniola took part in 2013, and Simoncini took part in 2014 as part of The Peppermints.

    Amber, who represented Malta, was a backing vocalist for the Maltese entry in 2012.

    Uzari, who represented Belarus, was a backing vocalist for the Belarusian entry in 2011.

    Elnur Hüseynov, who was Azerbaijan's debut representative at the Eurovision Song Contest 2008, as part of the duo Elnur and Samir, was internally selected to represent the nation for a second time.

    Raay, who is a part of the Slovene duo Maraaya, was a backing musical performer for the Slovene entry in 2014.

    Hera Björk, who previously represented Iceland in 2010, returned as a backing singer for Iceland's entry.

    Nicolas Dorian, part of Witloof Bay, Belgium representatives in 2011, was part of the backing vocalists of Loic Nottet.

    Semi-final 1

    16 countries took part in the first semi-final. Australia, Austria, France and Spain voted in this semi-final. The ten songs in places 1 to 10 qualified for the final and are marked in orange.

    Semi-final 2

    17 countries took part in this semi-final. Australia, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom voted in this semi-final. The ten songs in places 1 to 10 qualified for the final and are marked in orange.

    Final

    As in the 2014 contest, the winner was announced as soon as it was mathematically impossible to catch up. In this case, the winner had been determined by the 36th vote, which came from Cyprus.

    NOTES:
    a. ^ While Austria and Germany both finished with no points, Austria is listed as finishing "ahead" of Germany due to the tiebreaker rule that favours the song performed earliest in the running order.

    12 points

    Below is a summary of the maximum 12 points each country awarded to another in the first semifinal:

    12 points

    Below is a summary of the maximum 12 points each country awarded to another in the second semifinal:

    Final

    This is the first time since the juries were reintroduced alongside the televoting in 2009 that the winner was not placed first in the televoting.

    12 points

    Below is a summary of the maximum 12 points each country awarded to another in the final:

    Other countries

    For a country to be eligible for potential participation in the Eurovision Song Contest, it needs to be an active member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). The EBU issued an invitation of participation for the 2015 Contest to all 56 active members. Thirty-nine countries confirmed their participation, whilst the following list of countries declined stating their reasons as shown below.

    Active EBU members

  •  Andorra – On 17 June 2014, Andorran broadcaster Ràdio i Televisió d'Andorra (RTVA) confirmed that Andorra would not return to the contest in 2015.
  •  Bosnia and Herzegovina – The Bosnian broadcaster, Radio and Television of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BHRT), had submitted a provisional application to participate in the 2015 Contest, whilst they determined how to fund the participation fees. This application was subject to change and participation could subsequently be withdrawn. On 17 November 2014, the broadcaster announced that they had withdrawn their application to participate at the forthcoming contest because of financial reasons.
  •  Bulgaria – Despite sending a preliminary application to participate, on 10 October 2014 the Bulgarian broadcaster Bulgarian National Television (BNT) announced that it would not return to the contest because of financial reasons. On 31 October 2014, BNT confirmed that they had not yet taken a final decision on participation at the 2015 contest, and that the EBU had given them extra time to resolve outstanding budget issues. However, on 18 December 2014, BNT confirmed via their official Eurovision Twitter account that they would not take part in the 2015 Contest.
  •  Croatia – On 26 September 2014, Croatian national broadcaster Croatian Radiotelevision (HRT) confirmed that Croatia would not participate in the 2015 contest.
  •  Lebanon – Télé Liban (TL) confirmed on 15 September 2014 that Lebanon would not be making their début in Vienna. Lebanon were initially going to make their début at the 2005 contest, but they pulled out prior to the contest.
  •  Luxembourg – On 31 July 2014, RTL Télé Lëtzebuerg confirmed that Luxembourg would not be returning to the contest in 2015. However, it was reported on 26 October 2014 that the country's Minister of Culture, Maggy Nagel, expressed her desire for the country to return to the contest. This was later confirmed by Nagel to be a "misunderstanding" and that the country would not be returning. A collaboration with San Marino had been proposed by the broadcaster SMRTV and singer Thierry Mersch, but later SMRTV clarified that there have only been talks between the two countries and the broadcaster is evaluating other proposals. However, on 24 November 2014, it was announced that Mersch had failed to raise the necessary funds in time for the project to move forward.
  •  Monaco – Monegasque broadcaster Télé Monte Carlo (TMC) confirmed on 20 June 2014 that Monaco would not return to the contest in 2015.
  •  Morocco – Moroccan broadcaster Société Nationale de Radiodiffusion et de Télévision (SNRT) confirmed on 31 October 2014 that Morocco would not return to the contest in 2015.
  •  Slovakia – On 26 August 2014, Radio and Television Slovakia (RTVS) announced that Slovakia would not return to the contest in 2015 because of financial restrictions and an incompatibility between the contest format and the programming goals of the broadcaster.
  •  Turkey – Though the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) announced that Turkey would not be participating in the 2014 contest for the second year in a row, it was later reported that a return in the 2015 Contest could be possible with Eurovision event supervisor Sietse Bakker tweeting about the possibility of the country's return. In late August 2014, it was reported that international public relations officer for TRT, Yağmur Tüzün, stated that Turkey would not be returning to the contest in 2015 and that TRT currently has no plans to return to the competition. The non-participation was further confirmed on 5 September 2014.
  •  Ukraine – On 19 September 2014, Ukrainian broadcaster National Television Company of Ukraine (NTU) announced that Ukraine would not be participating in the contest because of financial reasons and the ongoing armed conflict in the country. On 16 September 2015, it was announced that Ukraine would return to the contest in 2016.

    • Require active EBU membership

  •  Liechtenstein – The Liechtenstein broadcaster 1FLTV suspended its plans to join the EBU because of lack of funding.

    • Anti-booing technology

    During the results, loud boos could be heard whenever Russia was mentioned or the country received one of the top three high points. The Russian entrant Polina Gagarina could be seen crying in the green room during the voting procedure, and this was reported by various media to have occurred as a result of the booing. During a break in the countries' reporting of their votes, when the running total showed Russia leading, Eurovision 2014 winner Conchita Wurst announced to Gagarina, "You gave an amazing performance, and you deserve to be in the lead." The Executive Supervisor of ESC, Jon Ola Sand, urged that Eurovision should be a "friendly battlefield....not a political battleground", and presenter Alice Tumler reminded the audience that "Our motto is 'Building Bridges', and music should stand over politics tonight...". The organisers had anticipated such reactions, and had prepared and installed 'anti-booing technology' which was deployed for the first time in Eurovision broadcasting history.

    Smoke machine malfunction

    During the performance of Georgia in the grand final, a smoke machine malfunctioned, causing the Georgian entrant Nina Sublatti to disappear temporarily on the stage in a cloud of grey smoke.

    Macedonia and Montenegro jury results excluded

    The jury votes from Macedonia and Montenegro in the final were not included, in accordance to the rulebook of the ESC. The rules for voting indicate that votes must be 50% jurors, 50% televoting, but Macedonia's and Montenegro's voting was 100% televoting. The change of votes did not affect Sweden's victory.

    Other awards

    The Marcel Bezençon Awards, the OGAE voting poll and the Barbara Dex Awards are awards that were contested by the entries competing at the Eurovision Song Contest 2015, in addition to the main winner’s trophy.

    Marcel Bezençon Awards

    The Marcel Bezençon Awards were first handed out during the Eurovision Song Contest 2002 in Tallinn, Estonia, honouring the best competing songs in the final. Founded by Christer Björkman (Sweden's representative in the 1992 Eurovision Song Contest and the current Head of Delegation for Sweden) and Richard Herrey (a member of the Herreys and the Eurovision Song Contest 1984 winner from Sweden), the awards are named after the creator of the annual competition, Marcel Bezençon. The awards were divided into three categories: Press Award, Artistic Award, and Composer Award. The winners were revealed shortly before the final on 23 May.

    OGAE

    Organisation Générale des Amateurs de l'Eurovision (more commonly known as OGAE) is an international organisation that was founded in 1984 in Savonlinna, Finland by Jari-Pekka Koikkalainen. The organisation consists of a network of over 40 Eurovision Song Contest fan clubs across Europe and beyond, and is a non-governmental, non-political, and non-profit company. In what has become an annual tradition for the OGAE fan clubs, a voting poll ran from 1 May 2015 and ended on 10 May 2015, allowing members from forty clubs to vote for their favourite songs of the 2015 contest. The table below shows the top five overall results, after votes from forty-one OGAE clubs had been cast.

    Barbara Dex Award

    The Barbara Dex Award, annually awarded by the fan website House of Eurovision from 1997 to 2016, and since 2017 by songfestival.be, is 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 a dress she designed herself.

    International broadcasts and voting

    It was reported by the EBU that the 2015 Contest was viewed by a worldwide television audience of a record breaking 197 million viewers, beating the 2014 record which was viewed by 195 million.

    Voting and spokespersons

    The voting order was revealed the morning of the final, but because of technical problems in some countries the final voting order was the following:

    Notes

    1.^ Portugal, Estonia and Georgia were originally scheduled to announce their votes as the 5th, 13th and 30th countries, respectively, but instead voted 38th, 39th and 40th, respectively, after all the other countries announced their votes. The reason for this was technical difficulties in the minutes running up to the voting presentation.

    Commentators

    Non-participating countries

  •  Bulgaria – Elena Rosberg and Georgi Kushvaliev (BNT 1 and BNT HD, final)
  •  Canada – Tommy D. and Adam Rollins (OUTtv, all shows)
  •  China – Kubert Leung and Wu Zhoutong (Hunan TV, all shows)
  •  New Zealand – No commentary (BBC UKTV, all shows)
  •  Ukraine – Timur Miroshnychenko and Tetiana Terekhova (Pershyi, all shows)

    • Official album

    Eurovision Song Contest: Vienna 2015 is the official compilation album of the 2015 Contest, put together by the European Broadcasting Union and was released by Universal Music Group on 20 April 2015. The album features all 40 songs that entered in the 2015 contest, including the semi-finalists that failed to qualify into the grand final.

    References

    Eurovision Song Contest 2015 Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA