A ballad from Australian star Delta Goodrem and a Danish ode to clubbing will fill the airwaves in Saturday’s Eurovision grand final in Vienna after making it through the second semi-final, which delivered a message in defence of LGBTQ people. Australia and Denmark, which qualified late Thursday in the battle for the last 10 slots, are among the favourites to win the world’s biggest live televised music spectacle, typically reaching more than 150 million viewers.
This year marks the 70th edition of Eurovision, which despite the razzmatazz rarely escapes the politics in the background. As in the two previous editions, the presence of Israel is sparking controversy, this time drawing an unprecedented political boycott by five countries, including Spain, one of Eurovision’s top financial contributors. Besides Australia and Denmark, Albania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Malta, Norway, Romania and Ukraine also secured places in the showpiece final at the Wiener Stadthalle.
They will join Finland, Greece and Israel — among the favourites which qualified on Tuesday — and others in the 25-country final.- ‘Phenomenal’ -“We have nothing like this in America, and I think Eurovision is phenomenal because it brings everybody together,” Tory Huflar, a US fan, told AFP after Thursday’s concert. Australian fan Grace Casper said it was “an amazing thing to see… it’s a very different experience to see it in person.”The show featured a pre-filmed segment in a lecture theatre with presenter Victoria Swarovski rebutting the question: “Why are there only gays at the Eurovision now?
Have they taken over?”She went through the history of Eurovision embracing the LGBTQ community but declared “No takeover detected”. Eurovision director Martin Green told reporters beforehand: “It is a message to the world that we, for 70 years, have given a voice to the voiceless and welcomed the disenfranchised.”In line with the final, this year, the semis were decided by public tele-voting and also by professional juries.
While waiting for the results to be revealed on Thursday, the crowd danced a mass Viennese waltz. Bulgarian pop singer Dara got the party started with some highly choreographed dancing on “Bangaranga”. Romania swung the show into heavy rock on “Choke Me”, which caused a minor furore in the Eurovision build-up over the lyrics. Australia has appeared at Eurovision by invitation since 2015, and Goodrem’s performance went down well with the more than 10,000 fans in the arena.
The 41-year-old, who had a string of international hits in the early 2000s, sang “Eclipse”, evoking a romantic alignment of the planets. Goodrem stood on top of a glittering piano, then soared into the air on a riser as sparks fell from the ceiling. Denmark’s Soren Torpegaard Lund sang “For Vi Gar Hjem” (“Before We Go Home”), plunging the crowd into the world of nightclubs.
The 27-year-old musical theatre singer will open Saturday’s final. – Finland overall favourite -Finland, with its string-laden “Liekinheitin”, or “Flamethrower”, considered the overwhelming favourite by bookmakers, will perform 17th. Five countries — Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Spain — are boycotting this year’s edition over Israel’s war in Gaza, waged in retaliation for the October 7, 2023, attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
A few dozen people gathered in central Vienna on Thursday to show their support for Israel’s participation. On Friday afternoon, a pro-Palestinian event was being held in downtown Vienna, with a concert and speeches, in parallel with Eurovision rehearsals for Saturday’s final. Four people were thrown out of the first semi-final on Tuesday, after attempts to disrupt Israel’s performance.
Austrian host broadcaster ORF had decided it would keep the audience microphones up throughout the show, and shouts of “Stop, stop the genocide”, and “Free, free Palestine” could be heard on the live broadcast. Asked Thursday whether they would mute the crowd mikes in Saturday’s final in case of further protests or disruption, ORF’s programme director Stefanie Groiss-Horowitz said: “We made the decision and we’re going to stick to this decision.
And we are sure that love will win.”
Fri, 15 May 2026 12:46:47 GMT