Eurovision Song Contest is an international song contest among participants from European countries. The first Eurovision Song Contest was held in 1956 in Switzerland. Since then, the competition has been held annually and is one of the most popular and rated events in the world.
Instruction manual
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The idea of creating a single European music competition came up with members of the European Broadcasting Union in the early 1950s. The creators of the contest pursued several goals: the identification of new talented artists, the popularization of pop music and the release of pop music on television screens.
In 1955, at a meeting in Monaco, the idea was approved. It was decided to hold the first competition in the next, 1956. The basis was the then popular music contest in San Remo.
The venue was chosen the city of Lugano in the south of Switzerland. The competition venue was the premises of the Kursaal Theater.
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The rules of the first Eurovision Song Contest were different from the current ones. Two representatives from each participating country participated in the vote. They scored each participant on a ten-point scale. The rules allowed voting for any country, even for the home country of the jury. This system has never been used.
From each country two songs could participate. The length of the songs should not exceed three and a half minutes. Groups and duets were not allowed to participate in the competition, only solo performance.
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Representatives of seven countries participated in the first competition: the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, France and the Federal Republic of Germany. Three more countries (Austria, Denmark and the United Kingdom) were also supposed to participate in the competition, but did not have time to register before the official deadline. The winner was a participant from Switzerland Liz Assia with the song “Refrain”. The remaining results of the competition were not announced.
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The order of participation was determined by lot. There were no restrictions on the number of people on stage. The participants themselves determined the language in which they performed their songs. The entire first contest lasted only one hour and forty minutes. There was no material reward for the winner.
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The next competition was held in 1957 in Germany. The rules were slightly changed: only one song could be presented from the country, the jury consisted of ten people from each country, voting for their country was forbidden.
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Since 1958, the Eurovision Song Contest has officially become an annual event. Every year the number of participating countries increased. In 2004, for the first time, the competition was divided into semifinals and finals. In 2014, 37 countries participated in the Eurovision song contest.
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Viewers' voting was first tested in 1996 by five countries (Great Britain, Austria, France, Germany, Sweden). The very next year, all participating countries introduced a spectator voting system.
