The Eurovision Song Contest 2006 was the fifty-first Eurovision Song Contest, held at the Olympic Indoor Hall in Athens, Greece on the 18 May 2006 (for the semi-final) and 20 May 2006 (for the final). The hosting national broadcaster of the contest was ERT. The Finnish band Lordi won the contest with the song "Hard Rock Hallelujah" with a record 292 points. "Hard Rock Hallelujah" was the first ever hard rock song to win the contest (Eurovision is normally associated with softer pop music and schlager). This was also Finland's first victory in Eurovision after 40 years of participation.
The official logo of the contest remained the same from 2004 and 2005 with the country's flag in the heart being changed. The 2006 sub-logo created by the design company Karamela for Greek television was apparently based on the Phaistos Disc which is a popular symbol of ancient Greece. According to ERT, it was "inspired by the wind and the sea, the golden sunlight and the glow of the sand". Following Istanbul's "Under The Same Sky" and Kiev's "Awakening", the slogan for the 2006 show was "Feel The Rhythm". This theme was also the basis for the postcards for the 2006 show, which emphasized Greece's historical significance as well as being a major modern tourist destination.
The hosts of the Eurovision Song Contest in Athens were popular Greek singer Sakis Rouvas (the Greek representative at Eurovision in 2004) and the Greek-American television presenter and actress, Maria Menounos. In the semi-final, both the hosts sang Katrina and the Waves' contest-winning "Love Shine A Light". For one of the intervals, Sakis Rouvas sang an English version of his Greek hit "S' exo Erotefti" called "I'm in love with you". Helena Paparizou, who performed the winning song in Kiev, returned to the Eurovision stage in Athens. Following the examples of Sertab Erener and Ruslana in the last two years, Helena Paparizou sang in the interval acts for the final. She sang "My Number One" and "Mambo!". Greek dancers were also present in the interval acts, as well as other Greek elements. An official CD and DVD was released and a new introduction was an official fan book released from this year, and every year to come with detailed information of every country.
To save time in the final, the voting time lasted ten minutes and the voting process was changed: points 1-7 were shown immediately on-screen. The spokespersons only announced the countries scoring 8, 10 and 12 points. Despite this being intended to speed proceedings up, there were still problems during voting - EBU imaging over-rode Maria Menounos during a segment in the voting interval and some scoreboards were slow to load. The Netherlands' spokesperson Paul de Leeuw also caused problems, giving his mobile number to presenter Rouvas during the Dutch results, and slowing down proceedings, also by announcing the first seven points. Constantinos Christoforou (who also represented Cyprus in 1996, 2002 and 2005) saved the day by making a political, still requisite, statement when saluting from "Nicosia, the last divided capital in Europe". During Cyprus reading, the telecast displayed Switzerland by mistake. This voting process has been criticized because suspense was lost by only reading three votes instead of ten.
The 2006 contest also saw the 1,000th song to be performed in the contest, when "Every Song Is A Cry For Love" by Ireland's Brian Kennedy was first sung in the semi-final. Armenia also entered for the first time in the contest. A number of fans were also shocked by the success of the Lithuanian entry - LT United singing 'We Are The Winners' and the failure of the Belgian entry - 'Je t'adore' by Kate Ryan, to qualify from the Semi-Final.
