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Big comeback
In May, the Eurovision Song Contest takes to the stage in Basel, marking the return of the huge event to the country where it was first held. We take a look back at Switzerland’s Eurovision history.
Following the first contest in 1956 in Lugano and the 1989 performance in Lausanne, Nemo’s victory in Malmö brings the Eurovision Song Contest back to Switzerland, the birthplace of the European music competition. This new stamp gives Eurovision fans, music enthusiasts and collectors something to celebrate as they await the third staging of the event in Switzerland. The design was created by Winterthur illustrator Balthasar Bosshard, independent of the official design. The stage is set for the musical design with a hidden special feature in the sheetlet can you decipher the code?
Take three:
Eurovision and Switzerland
1: How Eurovision came to Switzerland
The Eurovision was first held on 24 May 1956 in Lugano. Back then, the song contest was still called the Grand Prix Eurovision de la Chanson Européenne. The basic idea behind it was to bring Europe together with music 10 years after the end of the Second World War. The efforts to get the project off the ground were driven by Marcel Bezençon, Director General of broadcaster SRG, who in 1955 proposed a concept based on the Sanremo Music Festival, a contest established in Italy at the time. The European Broad casting Union (EBU), an association of broadcasters that still produces the ESC to this day, gave it the green light. The competitors in the newly founded European song contest were Germany, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Switzerland, with Austria, Denmark and the United Kingdom having missed the deadline for registration. During the competition, which lasted 100 minutes, each of the participants was allowed two songs, accompanied by an orchestra. Lys Assia, a world famous singer and actress from the canton of Aargau, won the first contest for Switzer- land with her song “Refrain”.
2: Triumph of another global star
Representing Switzerland at the 33rd Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin in 1988 was Canadian-born singer Céline Dion, who won with the song “Ne partez pas sans moi” to bring the event back to Switzerland. In 1989, the city of Lausanne hosted the event and welcomed participants from 22 countries. For the first time, Switzerland’s entry was a song in Romansh: the group Furbaz (which translates as “rascals”) came in 13th with their song “Viver senza tei”. Victory went to the band Riva, representing the former Yugoslavia with the song “Rock Me”.
3: First place for the third time
At last year’s Eurovision in Malmö, Nemo followed in the footsteps of Lys Assia and Céline Dion with “The Code”, leading Switzerland to their third victory in the contest. It means Eurovision, one of the world’s biggest music competitions with around 200 million viewers every year, can return again to its country of birth. The 69th Eurovision Song Contest will take place in Basel, with the semi finals on 13 and 15 May and the final on 17 May 2025.
