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A non-exhaustive list of things that happened during Eurovision 2024

If you were boycotting or otherwise not watching Eurovision this year, it was a fucking disaster behind the scenes, and a miserable experience for many artists participating.

Eurovision 2024's failures weren't just one event, but a series of poor decisions leading to a very bad atmosphere around the show for artists, reporters, staff and audience members. Artists were left traumatised or crying to reporters after the whole event. Grand Final ticket holders said they wish they hadn't bought them.

Eurovision is a well-oiled machine. Artists don't get many dress rehearsals in the run-up to the event so if multiple artists miss those, something has gone quite wrong. Ditto for the numerous points in time that did not go according to plan. All of this paints a picture of a show that was badly managed and somewhat out of control. The audience at the event - the fans - reacted in kind, booing the Executive Supervisor every time he appeared on stage and it seemed like the longer the competition went on, the more unhappy the audience became with Israel's existence in the competition.

This is a rough timeline featuring various reports and facts of where things went wrong or people showed discontent with the EBU or the way this event was handled more broadly. My friends and I cobbled this together as we were watching this show fall apart in realtime. This does not represent the full range of facts and commentary; more is sure to come out later about what happened during these days.

I also note some instances where artists made gestures both inside and out of the EBU's rules in support of Palestine and/or peace. This is not only a good thing, but it's relevant for this story. To my knowledge, there are more artists who did this (some of which RTP mention in their reporting on Israeli harassment) and more examples of expressions of solidarity, but I don't know what specific examples exist, and I had to stop writing this at some point.

I would like to shout out my very good friend shello, without whom I would not have nearly as many good details to give you from RTP and the Portuguese delegation and who kindly did a lot of fact checking for me and added a bunch of extra sources.

I would also like to thank @Siph and many other friends with whom we watched this shitshow and collectively shared reports of this shitshow in realtime and who also helped me with fact checking and fleshing out information.

Just a few basic facts to make this easier

I am not going to explain how Eurovision works in this post, if you are not familiar, some of these things may not make too much sense. There are explainers out there.

To avoid having to clarify every time, here are the broadcasters representing each country in Eurovision and contestants performing for them that are relevant in the following stories. I will be using flag emoji in these stories to indicate that this involved the country's contestant or representative broadcaster:

  • 🇪🇪 Estonia - ERR, contestants 5MIINUST x Puuluup
  • 🇫🇷 France - France Télévisions, contestant Slimane
  • 🇮🇪 Ireland - RTÉ, contestant Bambie Thug
  • 🇮🇱 Israel - KAN, contestant Eden Golan
  • 🇱🇹 Lithuania - LRT, contestant Silvester Belt
  • 🇳🇱 Netherlands - AVROTROS, contestant Joost Klein performing 'Europapa'
  • 🇵🇱 Poland - TVP, contestant Luna
  • 🇵🇹 Portugal - RTP, contestant Iolanda
  • 🇪🇸 Spain - RTVE
  • 🇨🇭 Switzerland - SRG SSR, contestant Nemo
  • 🇸🇪 Sweden (host country/broadcaster) - SVT

Other icons and useful facts:

  • 🔷 to indicate an action made by the EBU.
  • 🇪🇺 to indicate something involving the EU (yes, the EU gets involved).
  • 📝 to indicate something that happened to a reporter on the ground at the event.
  • 👥 to indicate audience reactions.
  • The executive supervisor for the contest since 2021 is Martin Österdahl. He always makes an appearance at the beginning of the voting section of the show. (This will be important later.)
  • ESC is short for 'Eurovision Song Contest', which is the full name of the competition.

The EBU employs anti-booing technology in the Eurovision live broadcasts, turning down audience mics and adding fake cheering when the audience is booing someone. Here's an explainer from a previous German contestant. It isn't foolproof, but this means the only way to truly understand an audience's reaction is to look at videos on the ground, especially in Israel's performance that night. Even in the live broadcast, you can hear some boos or markers that the audience reaction is falsified if you know what to look for.

Timeline

Tuesday 7 May (Semi-Final 1)

  • 🇮🇪 🔷 Bambie Thug mentioned in the SF1 press conference that they were ordered by the EBU to remove a painting of the word "ceasefire" in Ogham script on their face, and "free palestine" on their leg, and chose to replace those messages with "crown the witch". [YouTube]

Wednesday 8 May

  • 👥 Israel gets booed at the conclusion of their SF2 jury rehearsal. [Twitter]

Thursday 9 May (Semi-Final 2)

This was the semi-final that Israel participated in. The atmosphere at the Semi-Final 2 press conference was decidedly less pleasant than the first one.

  • 🇳🇱 (unknown time, revealed on 14 May) AVROTROS made a verbal report about an unsafe environment at the competition. [Eurovoix]

Semi-Final 2 (21:00 CEST - 23:30 CEST)

  • 👥 Israel gets some boos during their Semi-Final performance. [YouTube]

Semi-Final 2 Press Conference (~01:30 CEST)

  • 🇳🇱 Joost Klein was asked whenever if he felt that his song can unite people with music ('United by Music' being the permanent slogan of the contest), he said 'I think that's a good question for the EBU'. [YouTube, timestamped]
  • 🇳🇱 🇮🇱 Eden Golan was asked by a reporter what she thought about her presence there and whether she considered the safety risk her presence may have brought to the other contestants. She pauses, the press conference host/moderator says 'you don't have to answer that if you don't want to'. Joost Klein, who had put a Dutch flag over his head when the questions moved to the Israeli delegation, interjects with 'why not?' [Reddit]

Friday 10 May

  • 🇵🇹 (pub. 12:37 CEST) Iolanda reiterated her support for a free Palestine in an interview with a reporter. [Twitter, Portugese] [Público, Portuguese (paywalled)]
  • 🇳🇱 (unknown time, revealed on 14 May) AVROTROS made a formal written complaint to the EBU about an "unsafe environment", as they were dissatisfied with the response made by the EBU the previous day. [Eurovoix]

Joost becomes absent from first dress rehearsal and jury show

  • 🇳🇱 (~15:08 CEST) The EBU releases a statement saying that Joost "will not be rehearsing until further notice". [Eurovision World]
  • 🔷 (~17:02 CEST) The EBU cancels all press events for the day without notice, including the press event for the Big 5 + Sweden. [Twitter]
  • 🇳🇱 (~18:00 CEST) Joost Klein unfollows Eurovision and deletes stories related to his participation in this contest on Instagram. [Eurovision World]
  • 📝 (pub. 18:39 CEST) A long-time Spanish reporter at ESC posted a video about how he has been made to feel unsafe at the contest by the Israeli delegation and Israeli reporters. [Twitter, Spanish]
  • 🇳🇱 🔷 (~18:40 CEST) Reporters found the Dutch flag removed from Joost's dressing room. [Twitter]
  • 🇪🇸 (pub. 19:44 CEST) RTVE sends a communique to the EBU demanding that that Eurovision respects freedom of the press. [Twitter, Spanish]
  • 🇳🇱 🔷 (~20:28 CEST) It is announced that Joost Klein won't be allowed to participate in the Jury show following an incident that's under investigation. [NU, Dutch]
  • 🇵🇹 🇳🇱 🇮🇪 🇨🇭 🇬🇷 🔷 (Revealed by RTP the next day) Portugal was in an emergency meeting with the EBU alongside Netherlands, Ireland, Switzerland and Greece over harassment by the Israeli delegation and Israeli reporters. All of these countries' delegations made critical statements of Israel. EBU decided to move Israel's dressing room away from everyone else instead of disqualifying them. [Twitter/My Masto explaining it a bit more]

Jury performance and voting dress rehearsal

This is both a performance for the juries to make their votes, as well as a practice run of the voting systems and live links to other countries' jury vote spokespeople, normally played by stand-ins. This run of the voting systems uses mock randomised voting data.

Later stuff

  • 🔷 The Rest of World voting application is delayed. Eventually a message was added to the main page that it was due to the investigation of Joost Klein. [Eurovoix]

Saturday 11 May

  • 🔷 (~12:18 CEST) The EBU confirms that Joost Klein is disqualified. This is an unprecedented move - never in the history of Eurovision has an artist been disqualified mid-contest. The language they used was so poor and vague that it could be interpreted that Joost sexually assaulted someone. [Eurovoix]
  • 🇳🇱 AVROTROS made a public statement to clarify their perspective of what happened in full and defend Joost. They say that what happened was a camera operator was filming Joost immediately after his performance (note: this performance has a dedication to his dead parents at the end and he is genuinely tearful while he does it, and already asked people not to film him after). He asked the camera operator twice not to and then made a gesture (not touching the operator) to make them go away. [AVROTROS, Dutch and English]

Final dress rehearsal ('Family show')

  • 🇮🇪 Bambie Thug misses this rehearsal to talk to the EBU. [RTÉ]
  • 🇨🇭 🇬🇷 Greece and Switzerland miss this rehearsal's flag parade. This was reportedly due to them complaining to the EBU about being filmed by the Israeli delegation without consent. [NOS, Dutch]
  • 👥 Audience members shout 'Europapa' at Israel's performance, along with the usual boos. [Twitter]
  • 🇫🇷 Slimane risks disqualification by interrupting his song to make a speech about peace. [Reddit]

The run up to the Grand Final

  • 🇳🇱 (~18:46 CEST) The Dutch Eurovision commentator defends Joost and says 'fuck the EBU' [NU, Dutch]
  • 🇵🇱 Luna posts a video of her wearing her performance outfit with photos of this year's performers (minus Israel's) with 'NO WAR' written on her face. [Instagram]
  • 🇳🇴 Alessandra (2023 Norway contestant) withdraws from being the jury vote spokesperson for Norway, citing the ongoing Palestinian genocide in an Instagram video. [Instagram]
  • 🇫🇮 Käärijä (2023 Finland contestant and a friend of Joost) withdraws from being the jury vote spokesperson for Finland. [Instagram screenshot from reporter on the ground]
  • 🇮🇪 (~19:39 CEST) Bambie Thug announces they were waiting for a response on KAN's horrible conduct towards them during the contest. The EBU did not give a clear or consistent response. [Gabe on Twitter screenshotting their Instagram]
  • 🇳🇱 (~20:00 CEST) NPO Radio 2 (Dutch public radio) relaxes song submission rules to enable people to ask them to play Europapa repeatedly on the night of the Grand Final. It ended up playing 13 times between 20:00 and 00:00 local time. [NPO Radio 2, Internet Archive]
  • 🇳🇱 (~20:51 CEST) AVROTROS withdraws from announcing the jury vote entirely, forcing Martin Österdahl to do it at the Grand Final instead. [Twitter]

The Grand Final (21:00 - 01:00 CEST)

[YouTube, may not be accessible depending on where you live.].

Flag parade

Performances

Voting

Winner

Winner's Press Conference (~02:00 CEST)

[Full video on YouTube],

  • 🔷 Martin Österdahl usually ceremonially hands a "welcome pack" for the winning broadcaster hosting next year's show ([2021] [2022] [2023]). He was suspiciously absent this year, with the chair of the ESC Reference Group taking his place [YouTube, timestamped]. At the conclusion of the conference, someone among the reporters shouted "Have you seen Martin??" [YouTube, timestamped]
  • 🇨🇭 Nemo: "I have to say this whole experience was really intense, and not just pleasant all the way. There were a lot of things that didn't seem like it wasn't about love and unity and that made me really sad." [YouTube, timestamped]
  • 🇨🇭 Nemo reveals that they weren't allowed to have a non-binary flag in the arena. They had to smuggle it in themself. Members of the grand final audience were not so lucky, as they were escorted out by security and forced to throw them away before reentering. [YouTube, timestamped]

The current aftermath (as of 14 May)

12 May

  • 🇱🇹 Silvester Belt described going on stage after Israel (for whom the crowd booed constantly) as a traumatic experience and he wishes he hadn't qualified to the Grand Final. [Twitter]
  • 🇮🇪 After the conclusion of the event, In a tearful speech, Bambie revealed that KAN incited violence against them multiple times, and said 'Fuck the EBU'. [TheJournal.ie]
  • 🇳🇱 About 2.11 million Dutch spectators watched the Grand Final. Normally it would have been 4-6 million. [Eurovoix]
  • 🇵🇹 RTP is going to submit a 'formal protest' to the EBU if it concludes that the Portugese performance was 'discriminated'. Also wants an explanation of the fake cheers that were put in the broadcast during the Israeli performance in the Grand Final. [Twitter]

13 May

  • 🇪🇺 European Commission VP Margaritis Schinas vows that she will 'seek explanations and clarifications' for why the EU flag was banned from the event. [POLITICO]
  • 🔷 The EBU released a vague statement about various things that happened this contest and says that they're investigating them. I'm sure it will be excellent and thorough and that good things will come of it. /s [Eurovoix]
  • 🔷 The EBU says they'll review their flag policy for next year. [Eurovoix]

14 May

  • 🇪🇺 European Commission VP Margaritis Schinas wrote a stern letter to the EBU for its 'incoherence' with its flag policy at the event. [The Journal]
  • 🇳🇱 AVROTROS complains about anti-booing technology used in the competition and reveals they complained about an unsafe environment during the competition before the incident with Joost happened. [Eurovoix]
  • 🇳🇱 S10 (Netherlands' 2022 contestant) speaks out and says that she said she had a hard time with her participation during Eurovision 2022 and that backstage staff did not respect her boundaries, contributing to AVROTROS' claim that Joost's boundaries were not respected. [RTL, Dutch]
    There are other details too minor, but lets just say that the mood in the Netherlands about what happened is bad!

Some conclusions (IMO)

The EBU chose Israel over the other delegates' safety and wellbeing

Everything that has happened in this event reveals a pattern of behaviour - the EBU allowed Israel to exist among the other delegations and allowed them to make the lives of any delegation or reporter unpleasant and difficult if they didn't like what they had to say, while the EBU trampled another delegate in an unprecedented move for a minor incident in which he may have not been the instigator.

A lot of this was in plain view (here's some of the stuff, other people have followed this better, I have found it too upsetting):

The Twitter account IsrBreaksRules has collected a bunch of examples of terrible conduct from the Israeli delegation and reporters.

The EBU willingly damaged relationships with other countries' broadcasters and emotionally harmed artists performing to keep Israel on board when they were clearly disregarding rules and basic good conduct during this competition. (Let alone the whole genocide thing, or how KAN has no meaningful separation from the Israeli government, both easy grounds for the EBU to boot them out.)

From 🇮🇪 Bambie Thug on 12 May:

We brought it up to the EBU, they said they’d follow up. They waited until the last minute, we still haven’t got a statement back. They allowed us to be scapegoats, allowed us to be the spokesperson for standing up for ourselves.

The EBU handled Joost Klein's disqualification really poorly

When it comes to how an institution describes a developing story, the choice of when to say stuff and what details to add is a big fucking deal, especially when someone's public reputation is at stake.

I need to be clear here - the story of what happened that caused Joost Klein's disqualification is not settled. Police involved themselves in the proceedings (cops amirite), and the person on the other end of the altercation apparently has a different story of what happened.

What the EBU should have done is said that 'we definitely felt it was grounds for disqualification but we cannot discuss the details until this is settled'. What they ended up doing is cancelling all press events and going silent for a day, letting others come up with things (such as SVT saying it was a physical altercation) before releasing a public statement about disqualification with vague terminology but with specific details that really could insinuate what he did was really heinous. Not only did EBU completely lose control of the narrative, they forced people like AVROTROS to come up with a clear and coherent narrative of what happened instead.

I don't know if AVROTROS is correct, but they at least had the guts to put their reputation on the line and say something clear and understandable instead of hedging and saving their own asses with vague and potentially reputation-destroying statements. This is someone's public image and career we're talking about here, until you know exactly what happened and can give a clear account, don't fucking talk about it.

With this action, they also set a precedent in this competition that an artist could be disqualified mid-competition for how they behaved, and they clearly demonstrated that their care and attention to delegates behaving amicably was selective. Joost could be disqualified for his supposed conduct, but the Israelis were basically left to do whatever they wanted.

This is not the end

I said previously that if Israel won, the competition would be destroyed. Even though that hasn't happened, this event shows that the EBU with their current decision making, cannot make the event a safe experience for artists and reporters anymore.

This is a developing story. There are still probably plenty of details of what happened yet to come out. There are probably going to be angry talks between broadcasters and the EBU for weeks to come. I sincerely hope that broadcasters threaten to withdraw next year and some heads start rolling at the EBU.

There were many artists at this competition who had a really bad time because they dared to speak out in big or small ways about Israel, and if you're interested, I highly recommend checking out their songs [Spotify playlist, not by me], they deserve your love. What makes this shit even worse is that 2024 was an exceptional year for performances in Eurovision. Artists are probably going to be thinking a lot more carefully as to whether they really want to try to participate next year.

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