The 69th edition of the Eurovision Festival will be held next year in either Basel or Geneva. Swiss broadcaster, SRG, announced early this week.
The 2025 show will be hosted in that country after the representative from Switzerland, Nemo, won the 2024 edition with the song Code.
Following the successful completion of the 2024 edition, interested cities in Switzerland submitted bids to SRG, explaining why they would be a suitable location for the next edition.
According to organizers, the cities were expected to meet requirements such as “arena concept, public transport links, sustainability, available hotel accommodation, security and waste disposal concepts, investment, event experience, support and motivation from the city” and others.
Basel and Geneva emerged as the final two of the best bidders, the organizer said.
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The Eurovision Contest, held annually since 1956 is ranked as the longest-running international music competition on television. It was inspired by and based on Italy’s national Sanremo Music Festival, held in the Italian Riviera since 1951.
As of 2024, 52 countries had participated, at least once, in the competition. Participants send an original song of three minutes duration or less to be performed live by a singer or group of up to six people aged 16 or older.
Eurovision ranks among the world’s most-watched non-sporting events every year, with hundreds of millions of viewers globally. Performing at the contest has often provided artists with a local career boost and in some cases long-lasting international success.
The 2024 edition of the contest did not end without controversy. It started with a decision to allow Israel to compete amid the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The move was criticized by some observers as “cultural cover and endorsement for the catastrophic violence that Israel had unleashed on Palestinians.”
After the show, Joost Klein, a performer from the Netherlands, who was disqualified from the contest was expected to face charges by law enforcement officials.
The 26-year-old contestant was said to have issued “verbal threats” towards a female member of the production crew and was disqualified “just hours” before the grand finale of the show which ended in Malmö, Sweden, on May 11, 2024.
The incident was described as the first time an act had been disqualified after reaching the grand finale in the competition’s 68-year history.
Klein’s “misconduct” was seen as a breach of the “contest rules.” A statement, announcing the disqualification of Klein after his semi-final performance, said the contest maintained a “zero-tolerance” policy towards “inappropriate behavior.”
Winners of the contest, Nemo, described their experience as “really intense, and not just pleasant all the way”.
