Eurovision 2024 goes to…Switzerland!

I watched the entire Eurovision 2024 finals from Malmo, Sweden, so you didn’t have to.

Although I was pulling hard for Ireland’s Bambi Thug (think a Goth Kate Bush on meth) and Croatia’s Baby Lasagna (a decent rock band and the bookies’ favourite to win), in the end, it was this performance of “The Code” from Nemo, the Swiss entry.

Nemo is the competition’s first non-binary winner and the first winner from Switzerland since Celine Dion (yes, she competed for the Swiss) won in 1988. Nemo’s win means that Switzerland will host Eurovision 2024.

Eurovision voting looks awfully weird unless it’s explained to you. Things start with professional juries in each of the 37 participating Eurovision nations giving points to the 12 acts they like most, with the maximum number of points being 12 and the least being one. Juries cannot vote for their own countries. This counts toward 50% of the final tally.

Then there’s the fan voting, which works the same way. It’s therefore possible for the fan vote to overturn the vote from the professional juries.

In the case of 2024, Switzerland picked up a lot of 12-point votes from the juries, putting them far out front by the time the fan votes were tallied. Along came Ukraine, France, Israel, and Croatia–and for the briefest of moments, it looked like Croatia would come from the back of the back to take it all with a huge tally from fans. But then Switzerland–the last country to receive the fan vote results–eked it out for the win. But not by much.

If you watched the whole thing, you may have fallen over dizzy because of the quick cuts and fast set changes. Here’s how that worked. (Via Sean)

Meanwhile, there was more than enough controversy. In fact, this was probably the most controversial Eurovision in history.

Several acts (including Switzerland, Ireland, and Greece.) failed to show up for rehearsal. There were plenty of protests surrounding Israel (including a demand by Ireland they be disqualified.) The singer from the Norwegian act had some kind of hissy fit about announcing points. And the act from The Netherlands was disqualified after some kind of “backstage incident” that involved a member of the production team. Whatever happened was enough to bring in the police.