2024 Eurovision Song Contest

The Eurovision Song Contest 2024 is set to be the 68th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It is scheduled to take place in Malmö, Sweden, following the country's victory at the with the song "Tattoo" by Loreen. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster (SVT), the contest will be held at the Malmö Arena, and will consist of two semi-finals on 7 and 9 May, and a final on 11 May 2024. It will be the third edition of the contest to take place in Malmö, which hosted it in and , and the seventh in Sweden, which last hosted it in Stockholm in .

Thirty-seven countries were confirmed to participate in the contest, with returning 31 years after its last participation in , while is still in discussion regarding its participation.

Location

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The 2024 contest will take place in Malmö, Sweden, following the country's victory at the 2023 edition with the song "Tattoo", performed by Loreen. It will be the seventh time Sweden hosts the contest, having previously done so in , , , , , and . The selected venue is the 15,500-seat Malmö Arena, the second largest multi-purpose indoor arena in Sweden, which serves as a venue for handball matches, floorball matches, concerts, and other events, noted for having already hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in 2013. Another location will accommodate the "Turquoise Carpet" event, where the contestants and their delegations are presented before accredited press and fans.

The host city also organises side events in conjunction with the contest. will be the location of the Eurovision Village, which will host performances by contest participants and local artists, as well as screenings of the live shows, for the general public. A "Eurovision Street" will also be established between and .

Bidding phase

Immediately after Sweden's win in the 2023 contest, the first cities to voice their interest in hosting the 2024 edition were Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö, the three largest cities in the country as well as the ones to have previously hosted the contest. Besides these, a number of other cities also expressed their intention to bid in the days that followed the 2023 victory, namely Eskilstuna, Jönköping, Örnsköldsvik, Partille and Sandviken.

SVT set a deadline of 12 June 2023 for interested cities to formally apply. Stockholm and Gothenburg officially announced their bids on 7 and 10 June respectively, followed by Malmö and Örnsköldsvik on 13 June. Shortly before the closing of the application period, SVT revealed that it had received several bids, later clarifying that they had come from these four cities. Prior to this announcement, Sandviken and Jönköping had already declared to have opted out. On 7 July, Gothenburg and Örnsköldsvik's bids were reported to have been eliminated. Later that day, the EBU and SVT announced Malmö as the host city.

Key:

Host city
Shortlisted
Submitted a bid

Participating countries

Eligibility for participation in the Eurovision Song Contest requires a national broadcaster with an active EBU membership capable of receiving the contest via the Eurovision network and broadcasting it live nationwide. The EBU issues invitations to participate in the contest to all members.

On 5 December 2023, the EBU announced that at least 37 countries would participate in the 2024 contest. is set to return to the contest 31 years after its last participation in , while , which had participated in the 2023 contest, was provisionally announced as not participating in 2024, with talks still ongoing between the EBU and Romanian broadcaster TVR .

Other countries

* Despite previous allocation of funds to participate in the 2024 contest, Macedonian broadcaster MRT ultimately did not appear on the official list of participants; the broadcaster clarified that this was due to its decision to focus on the celebrations for the 80th and 60th anniversaries of the national radio and television, respectively, but that it still intended to broadcast the contest. North Macedonia last took part in .
* Romania was not included in the list of participants published on 5 December, but the EBU revealed that the country was still in talks regarding its 2024 participation. Shortly after, Romanian broadcaster TVR explained that the payment of the participation fee, and thus the inclusion of Romania in the contest, will depend on the approval of a new budget plan which it had submitted to the Ministry of Finance, confirming earlier speculation; the EBU agreed to extend the deadline for the payment accordingly.
Active EBU member broadcasters in , , and confirmed non-participation prior to the announcement of the participants list by the EBU.

Production

The Eurovision Song Contest 2024 will be produced by the Swedish national broadcaster (SVT) and Malmö Municipality will contribute (approximately ) to the budget of the contest. The core team will consist of Ebba Adielsson as executive producer, as deputy executive producer, Tobias Åberg as executive in charge of production, Johan Bernhagen as executive line producer, Christer Björkman as contest producer, and as TV producer. Additional production personnel will include head of production David Wessén, head of legal Mats Lindgren, head of media Madeleine Sinding-Larsen, and executive assistant Linnea Lopez. Willers, Åberg, Bernhagen, Björkman and Lindgren have previously worked on the , 2013 and/or 2016 contests, in various capacities. Björkman has also produced the '' American Song Contest'' (an adaptation of the Eurovision format for the United States) and has been largely involved in , the Swedish national final for Eurovision, at which Blankens, Sinding-Larsen and Willers have also worked.

Edward af Sillén and will write the script for the live shows' hosting segments and the opening and interval acts; the two have previously worked jointly in this position at both the 2013 and 2016 contests.

In November 2023, the production team at SVT stated its intention to increase security measures and to keep in contact with Malmö's police authority during the contest, citing the risk of potential terrorist attacks as a spillover of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war.

Slogan and visual design

On 14 November 2023, the EBU announced that "United by Music", the slogan of the 2023 contest, would be retained for 2024 and future editions. The accompanying theme art for 2024, named "The Eurovision Lights", was unveiled on 14 December. Designed by Stockholm-based agencies Uncut and Bold Scandinavia, it is based on simple, linear gradients inspired by vertical lines found on auroras and sound equalisers, and was built with adaptability across different formats taken into account.

Stage design

The stage design for the 2024 contest was unveiled on 19 December 2023. It was devised by German Florian Wieder, the same stage designer for the 2011–12, 2015, 2017–19, and 2021 contests, with Swede Fredrik Stormby designing lighting and screen content. It features movable LED cubes and floors along with other lighting, video and stagecraft technology, all set around a cross-shaped centre, with the aim of "creating a unique 360-degree experience" for viewers.

Format

Semi-final allocation draw

The draw to determine the participating countries' semi-finals, also simply referred to as "The Draw" in official branding, will take place on 30 January 2024 at 19:00 CET. The semi-finalists are divided over a number of pots, based on historical voting patterns, with the purpose of reducing the chance of bloc voting and to increase suspense in the semi-finals. The draw also determines which semi-final each of the six automatic qualifiershost country and " Big Five" countries (, , , and the )will vote in and be required to broadcast. The ceremony will be hosted by Pernilla Månsson Colt and Farah Abadi, and is expected to include the passing of the host city insignia from the mayor (or equivalent role) of previous host city Liverpool to the one of Malmö.

Proposed changes

A number of changes to the format of the contest have been proposed and/or considered for the 2024 edition. The first discussions on the matter took place at the annual Eurovision Song Contest Workshop, held at the in Berlin, Germany, on 12 September 2023. Decisions as to whether and what changes will be applied are up to the contest's reference group. The rules of the 2024 contest were published on 1 November 2023; no notable changes were made compared to the previous edition. Host broadcaster SVT is also evaluating reducing the runtime of the final by approximately an hour, as it has significantly increased since the introduction of features such as the opening flag parade in 2013 and the split jury/televote system in 2016.

Voting system and rules

After the outcome of the 2023 contest, which saw win despite 's lead in the televoting, sparked controversy among the audience, Norwegian broadcaster NRK started talks with the EBU regarding a potential revision of the jury voting procedure; it has been noted that Norwegian entries in recent years have also been penalised by the juries, particularly in and , when the country finished in sixth and fifth place overall, respectively, despite coming first in 2019 and third in 2023 with the televote. In an interview, the Norwegian head of delegation discussed the idea of reducing the jury's weight on the final score from the current 49.4% to 40% or 30%. Any changes to the voting system are expected to be officially announced in January 2024.

At the Edinburgh TV Festival in August 2023, the EBU's deputy director-general Jean-Philip de Tender discussed the possibility of banning AI-generated content from the contest in order to preserve human contribution, maintaining that "creativity should come from humans and not from machines". On 27 November 2023, Sammarinese broadcaster SMRTV launched a collaboration with London-based AI startup Casperaki as part of , openly allowing entries to be created with the help of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence also contributed to the composition of one of the selected competing entries in the Norwegian national final , revealed on 5 January 2024.

In late September 2023, Carolina Norén, 's commentator for the contest, revealed that she had resumed talks with executive supervisor Martin Österdahl concerning the qualification system; Norén suggested reviewing the rule whereby the "Big Five" countries directly qualify for the final, proposing to restrict it to only the previous winner and host country, and to require the "Big Five" to compete in the semi-finals.

Broadcasts

All participating broadcasters may choose to have on-site or remote commentators providing insight and voting information to their local audience. While they must broadcast at least the semi-final they are voting in and the final, most broadcasters air all three shows with different programming plans. In addition, some non-participating broadcasters air the contest. The Eurovision Song Contest YouTube channel provides international live streams with no commentary of all shows.

The following are the broadcasters that have confirmed in whole or in part their broadcasting plans:

Notes

References

External links

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2020s in Malmö
2024 in Swedish television
2024 song contests
2024
Events at Malmö Arena
Events in Malmö
May 2024 events in Sweden
Music competitions in Sweden