Euroviisut 2007 was the show in which Finland chose its entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2007. Finland will be acting as host of the Eurovision contest for the first time, after Lordi won in 2006. Each participant sang two songs in their respective semi finals, and televoting selected the best song of the two to be sung by that artist in the final. Televoting then determined the overall winner in the final. Hanna Pakarinen won Euroviisut 2007 on 17th February with her song Leave Me Alone, and she will thus represent Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest on 12th May.
The Italian entry, "Al Di La", was featured the following year in the film Rome Adventure (1962).
This was the 40th edition of the Contest and was produced once again by RTE for the third time in succession. RTE that year were also celebrating the 30th anniversary of their first entry into Eurovision and the 25th of their first win.
Indiana Jones star Alison Doody was the original choice for the role of presenter and entered into negotiations with RTE, but in the end pulled out. Mary Kennedy, who had previously understudied Doireann Ni Briain for the 1981 contest was eventually chosen to present the show.
The spectacular opening sequence involved a 90 second video entitled 'A Day In The Life of Ireland', followed by a retrospective of 40 years of Eurovision before the cameras panned onto the stage covered by drapes which were pulled away to reveal a set containing giant revolving screens, a disappearing staircase and a large background which linked up to the rest of the stage amid dazzling fireworks. Alan Farquarson, was the designer.
In order to help ease the financial burden of producing its third Eurovision in successive years, RTE considered several options as to how to put together this show without financially crippling itself. One of the options included locating it at a sound stage at Wicklows Ardmore Studios in front of a small invited audience outsourcing it to independent production companies. Another idea (and one that almost came to fruition) was to co-produce the show with BBC Northern Ireland and locate it in Belfast as this was the era when peace finally came to the North. In the end and due to several security and logistical reasons, it returned to the Point Theatre solely as an RTE production.
There were allegations that RTE made every effort to ensure that the song they chose to represent Ireland would be one that had no possibility of winning. Indeed the song that was chosen (Dreamin performed by Eddie Friel), was mired in controversy as it was accused of plagiarism. In spite of sounding to similar to another song, RTE allowed it to go through with many claiming that RTE were delighted with the negative publicity and therefore few of the juries would vote for it.
Although the Italian entry, "Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu" only came third, it became a worldwide hit under the name "Volare".
The first entry to be performed was the Italian song, which was not heard in some countries to due a technical broadcasting fault. As a result, it was performed again after the last song was performed (from Switzerland) before the voting took place.
Although the Luxembourg entry "L'Amour Est Bleu" did not win, it went on to be an international orchestral hit under the name "Love Is Blue".
Johnny Logan, the composer of the Irish entry, becomes the first person to win the Eurovision song contest three times. He also won the contest in 1980 and 1987.
There were four winners this year - Spain, United Kingdom, The Netherlands, and France. As there were no rules how to distinguish between songs finishing on the same place with the same amount of points, all four countries were declared winners.
Although the show was broadcast in color for the Eurovision and Intervision Networks and through satellite to Chile, Puerto Rico and Brazil, the technical limitations of TVE at that time forced the transmission to be done in black and white inside Spanish territory, and also forced the recording of the TVE tape in the same format.
TVE had to borrow the color cameras from the BBC because all the TV cameras they had (until 1973) were black and white.
Terry Wogan so enraged the Danish Hosts with his sarcastic commentary that he has been banned from commentating in Danish-Hosted Eurovisions in future.
The Contest returned to Ireland for the 4th time in five years and made its third trip to the Point Theatre. This time round children's television presenter Carrie Crowley was chosen to present the show alongside popular singer Ronan Keating from Boyzone (who also performed in the interval act).
The United Kingdom ended a 16 year drought when Katrina And The Waves achieved victory for the British with the song 'Love Shine A Light'. At 227 points, it was the highest score ever achieved for a winning song in the contest, 70 points clear of Ireland who came in second.
This was to be the final year that the winning song was chosen by jury members. Televoting was used for the first time by five countries on an experimental basis and proved so successful it was used to replaced all juries the following year.
Several former participants filmed 30 second films which were shown throughout the contest. Those artists included Celine Dion, Benny and Bjorn from Abba, Cheryl and Mike from Bucks Fizz, Julio Iglesias, Cliff Richard, Niamh Kavanagh, Johnny Logan, Linda Martin, Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan, Sandra Kim, Hanne Krogh and Elizabeth Andreassen from Bobbysocks, Fionnuala Sherry and Rolf Lovland from Secret Garden and the reigning champion Eimaear Quinn.
Italy made a return to the contest having not competed since 1993. The San Remo Festival winners Jalisse performed Fiumi Di Parole into a very respectable 4th place. Sadly Italy have not participated since.
NOS television stopped live broadcasting of the Eurovision song contest 2000 at 22:00 hrs CET because of a major explosion of fireworks factory in Enschede, Netherlands. 29 people were killed and approx 950 people were injured.
Because the broadcasting was stopped due to the fireworks disaster in the Netherlands, Dutch people were not able to participate in the tele-voting. Instead a Dutch jury gave their votes.
The host of the show, Lill Lindfors' skirt ripped off after passing through a part of the set on stage. After her "short embarrassment", she pulled the back and the front part of her dress from her shoulders, and unfolded a long white gown. In Interviews after the contest, Lill has said herself that it was planned, but not done during the rehearsals the night before.
In as break from the tradition that the contest is hosted by the previous year's winners, it was held in the United Kingdom, who had finished 4th, rather than France, who had won in 1962.
Unusually, the performances came from a separate studio to that containing the host and audience. This was because most, if not all, had been pre-recorded earlier in the day.
First Eurovision appearance by Israel
Canadian singer Celine Dion represented Switzerland and won the contest by a margin of just one point (over the UK's Scott Fitzgerald)
The vast modern stage was the largest used in any Eurovision Song Contest up to that time. As the RDS arena was small, elaborate camera shots were used make the arena look bigger
For the first time in the history of the contest, a country was disqualified for breaching the rules. The Cypriot entry was previously recorded and released 4 years earlier, which is forbidden.
The Interval act 'Don't Go', performed by the Hot House Flowers, was filmed in 11 countries and cost 250,000 pounds to make. It was sponsored by the European Commission as part of its promotion of the European Year of Film and Television.
The first, and only, appearance by Morocco
A Lordi music video made for this production cost more than any other Finnish short film with over 200,000 EUR budget.
Most expensive Finnish TV production ever.
Debut of Greece
France withdrew at a late stage, owing to the death of President Georges Pompidou
The festival was held in Millstreet, a small village in county Cork in southern Ireland, the reason was that one of the directors of the Irish Television RTE was born there. The venue was an equestrian center which had been converted into a music stage just for the occasion.
Fazla was selected to represent Bosnia Herzegovina when the country was at the height of its war. In order to get out of the country to participate in the contest in Millstreet, they had to flee Sarajevo airport at night time, even though the city was under siege at the time.
This Contest was the last in which the never seen juries were contacted and heard by telephone. The following year, jury spokespersons were seen for the first time in live satellite links.
The population of Millstreet at the time of the contest was 1,500 people.
For the first time in the history of the contest, a preliminary round of qualifications was held. Seven East European Countries (including those from the former Yugoslavia), competed in a contest in Ljublijana for the final three remaining places in the contest. Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina and Slovenia received the highest amount of points to take them to Millstreet
Ireland won the contest for the third consecutive year which is a record in the history of the Eurovision song contest.
This contest established many records - First time a Eurovision was held in the same country in consecutive years - first time won by a male duo, highest winning score - first time a song won without use of an orchestra.
The world famous Irish Dance show Riverdance, made its debut as a seven minute interval act at the 1994 Eurovision. It was the first time any act in the Eurovision received a standing ovation. The Show went on to break box office records around the world.
The budget for the contest was half of what RTE spent on the Millstreet edition the year before. But due to the success of Riverdance, this became the most commercially successful contest for any Eurovision host broadcaster in the history of the contest.
Excluding the first contest in 1956, a record seven East European countries (Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Hungary, Romania and Estonia) made their debut at the 1994 Contest.
Gerry Ryan was previously in the running to host the 1988 contest and even screen tested with Michelle Rocca. However he lost out to Pat Kenny. He was once again close to winning the job in 1993 until RTE decided to go with just Fionnuala Sweeney on her own.
Although Cynthia Ni Mhurchu was a regular face on Irish television for many years by being a presenter of Gaelic Language programs, this was the first time she presented a live television show in English.
The Polish act was almost disqualified on the day of the contest following her performance in the dress rehearsals whereby in front of the 300 jury members, she performed the song partly in English instead of Polish (rules at the time prohibited the performing of a song in a language that was not prevalent to the country of origin).
Israel became only the second nation to retain its title, but the first one not to defend it. This was because the date of the 1980 contest coincided with its Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The presenters were the two Italian winners of the Eurovision song contest; Gigliola Cinquetti who won in 1964, and Toto Cutugno who won in 1990. The problem was that nobody had asked them if they could speak English, as a consequence the entire contest was presented in Italian which was very inappropriate as most viewers were non-Italians and did not understand a word of what they said.
There were actually two winners this year, both Sweden and France finished on the same place with 146 points. However following the embarrassment of 1969 when there were four winners, the rules now clearly say there can only be one winner. The voting coordinator Frank Naeff examined what points the countries had received to decide the winner. Both France and Sweden had received four "12 points", however Sweden had received more "10 points" than France and was declared the winner.
From 18-21 May the international exhibition of photographs "We, the People of Eurovision..." took place the first time within the framework of Eurovision Song Contest 2005. For Germany Dirk Jung took part as a photographer with a picture of Gracia Baur.
During the first song, the Spanish entry, one of the sound technicians forgot to turn on the prerecorded sounds used in the song so the performance had to restart after the mistake was discovered.
