Eurovision Song Contest 1994
The Eurovision Song Contest 1994 was the 39th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, held on 30 April 1994 at the Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland, and presented by Cynthia Ní Mhurchú and Gerry Ryan. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union and host broadcaster RTÉ, who staged the event after winning the for with the song "In Your Eyes" by Niamh Kavanagh. It was the first time that any country had hosted two successive editions of the contest, following the previous year's contest held in Millstreet.
Broadcasters from twenty-five countries participated in the contest, which for the first time featured a relegation system to reduce the number of interested participants. Seven new countries participated in the event, with entries from,,,,, and featuring for the first time. However,,,,, and were unable to compete due to the new relegation rules as the lowest-scoring countries at the previous event, whereas decided against participating by choice.
For the third time in a row, won the contest with the song "Rock 'n' Roll Kids", written by Brendan Graham and performed by Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan. Never before had a country won three times in a row in the history of the contest; at the same time, it was also a record sixth win, cementing Ireland as the country with the most wins in Eurovision history up till that point.,,, and rounded out the top five positions, with Poland achieving the most successful result for a début entry in the contest's history.
The 1994 contest also featured the first appearance of Riverdance. Originally a seven-minute performance of traditional Irish and modern music, choral singing and Irish dancing featured as part of the contest's interval act, it was subsequently developed into a full stage show which has since become a worldwide phenomenon and catapulted the careers of its lead dancers Jean Butler and Michael Flatley.
Location
The 1994 contest took place in Dublin, Ireland, following the country's victory at the with the song "In Your Eyes", performed by Niamh Kavanagh. It was the fifth time that Ireland had hosted the contest, following the, and events also held in Dublin, and the previous year's event held in Millstreet. Ireland thus became the first country to host two successive contests.The selected venue was the Point Theatre, a concert and events venue located among the Dublin Docklands and originally built as a train depot and warehouse to serve the nearby port. Opened as a music venue in 1988, it was closed for redevelopment and expansion in 2008 and is now known as the 3Arena. At the time of the contest, the arena could seat around 3,200 audience members.
Participants
Twenty-five countries were permitted to participate in the contest. As the number of countries interested in participating in the contest grew, and following the use of a qualifying round in the previous year's event, a relegation system was introduced to the contest for the first time, which would prevent the lowest-scoring countries from the previous year's event from participating in the subsequent contest. In the summer of 1993 the European Broadcasting Union confirmed that the seven lowest-scoring countries in the 1993 event would be barred from entering the 1994 contest, to make way for seven countries which would participate for the first time. As a result,,,,,,, and were unable to enter the contest, and in the contest's largest single expansion of new participating countries since the first edition in,,,,,,, and made their début appearances. Estonia, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia had all previously participated in the 1993 qualifying round Kvalifikacija za Millstreet. Belgium thus failed to participate in the contest for the first time, leaving and as the only countries to have competed in every edition of the contest so far. Later in 1993 's broadcaster RAI subsequently announced that it would not participate in the event, likely due to a lack of interest in the event among the Italian public and concerns within the broadcaster at the costs of staging the contest in the event that Italy won; this led to Cyprus being readmitted as the relegated country with the best result at the 1993 contest.Four performers who had competed in previous editions of contests featured among the participating artists at this year's event: Marie Bergman, representing with Roger Pontare, had been a member of the group Family Four that had represented the country in the and ; Cyprus's Evridiki made a second appearance in the contest, following her entry at the ; Sigga returned to the contest for for a third time, having previously competed as part of Stjórnin in and Heart 2 Heart in 1992; and Elisabeth Andreasson, competing in this event with Jan Werner Danielsen for, also participated for the third time, having been a member of the group Chips, which represented Sweden in, and Bobbysocks!, which had represented Norway and were the winners of the. A number of artists which had previously competed in the contest also returned as backing performers: Rhonda Heath, who was a member of the group Silver Convention that had represented Germany in the, performed as a backing singer for the German entry Mekado; and, who represented Iceland at the alongside, returned as a backing singer for Sigga. Additionally, having supported 's William Mangion as backing performers in the previous year's event, Moira Stafrace and Christopher Scicluna returned to the Eurovision stage as the country's entrants at this year's contest.
| Country | Broadcaster | Artist | Song | Language | Songwriter | Conductor |
| ORF | Petra Frey | "Für den Frieden der Welt" | German | |||
| RTVBiH | Alma and | "Ostani kraj mene" | Bosnian | Sinan Alimanović | ||
| HRT | Tony Cetinski | "Nek' ti bude ljubav sva" | Croatian | Miljenko Prohaska | ||
| CyBC | Evridiki | "Ime anthropos ki ego" | Greek | George Theofanous | George Theofanous | |
| ETV | Silvi Vrait | "Nagu merelaine" | Estonian | Urmas Lattikas | ||
| YLE | "Bye Bye Baby" | Finnish | Olli Ahvenlahti | |||
| France Télévision | Nina Morato | "Je suis un vrai garçon" | French | Alain Goraguer | ||
| MDR | "Wir geben 'ne Party" | German | Norbert Daum | |||
| ERT | Kostas Bigalis and | "To trehandiri " | Greek | Kostas Bigalis | Noel Kelehan | |
| MTV | Friderika | "Kinek mondjam el vétkeimet?" | Hungarian | Szilveszter Jenei | ||
| RÚV | Sigga | "Nætur" | Icelandic | Frank McNamara | ||
| RTÉ | Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan | "Rock 'n' Roll Kids" | English | Brendan Graham | ||
| LRT | "Lopšinė mylimai" | Lithuanian | Tomas Leiburas | |||
| PBS | Moira Stafrace and Christopher Scicluna | "More Than Love" | English | Anthony Chircop | ||
| NOS | Willeke Alberti | "Waar is de zon" | Dutch | Harry van Hoof | ||
| NRK | Elisabeth Andreasson and Jan Werner Danielsen | "Duett" | Norwegian | |||
| TVP | Edyta Górniak | "To nie ja!" | Polish | Noel Kelehan | ||
| RTP | Sara | "Chamar a música" | Portuguese | |||
| TVR | Dan Bittman | "Dincolo de nori" | Romanian | Noel Kelehan | ||
| RTR | Youddiph | "Vechny strannik" | Russian | Lev Zemlinski | ||
| STV | Martin Ďurinda and Tublatanka | "Nekonečná pieseň" | Slovak | Vladimír Valovič | ||
| TVE | Alejandro Abad | "Ella no es ella" | Spanish | Alejandro Abad | Josep Llobell | |
| SVT | Marie Bergman and Roger Pontare | "Stjärnorna" | Swedish | Anders Berglund | ||
| SRG SSR | "Sto pregando" | Italian | Giuseppe Scaramella | |||
| BBC | Frances Ruffelle | "We Will Be Free " | English | Michael Reed |
Production and format
The Eurovision Song Contest 1994 was produced by the Irish public broadcaster RTÉ. Moya Doherty served as executive producer, Patrick Cowap served as director, Paula Farrell served as designer, and Noel Kelehan served as musical director, leading the RTÉ Concert Orchestra. A separate musical director could be nominated by each participating delegation to lead the orchestra during its country's performance, with the host musical director also available to conduct for those countries which did not nominate their own conductor. On behalf of the contest organisers, the European Broadcasting Union, the event was overseen by Christian Clausen as scrutineer.Each participating broadcaster submitted one song, which was required to be no longer than three minutes in duration and performed in the language, or one of the languages, of the country which it represented. A maximum of six performers were allowed on stage during each country's performance, and all participants were required to have reached the age of 16 in the year of the contest. Each entry could utilise all or part of the live orchestra and could use instrumental-only backing tracks; however, any backing tracks used could only include the sound of instruments featured on stage being mimed by the performers.
Following the confirmation of the twenty-five competing countries, the draw to determine the running order was held on 16 November 1993 at the Point Theatre and was conducted by Niamh Kavanagh and Fionnuala Sweeney.
The results of the 1994 contest were determined through the same scoring system as had first been introduced in : each country awarded twelve points to its favourite entry, followed by ten points to its second favourite, and then awarded points in decreasing value from eight to one for the remaining songs which featured in the country's top ten, with countries unable to vote for their own entry. The points awarded by each country were determined by an assembled jury of sixteen individuals, which was required to be split evenly between members of the public and music professionals, between men and women, and by age. Each jury member voted in secret and awarded between one and ten votes to each participating song, excluding that from their own country and with no abstentions permitted. The votes of each member were collected following the country's performance and then tallied by the non-voting jury chairperson to determine the points to be awarded. In any cases where two or more songs in the top ten received the same number of votes, a show of hands by all jury members was used to determine the final placing.
With the Point Theatre situated on the banks of the River Liffey, rivers were an integral part of the overall creative vision for the show and were a key theme of the opening and interval acts as well as the stage design. Paula Farrell's design, which was four times the size of the stage constructed for the Millstreet contest, provided a scene of a futuristic Dublin at night, featuring representations of skyscrapers which incorporated video screens and lighting effects and underfloor lighting representing the Liffey and Dublin Bay. On either side of the stage podium-lined platforms were used by the presenters in-between songs and during the voting segment.
Rehearsals at the contest venue began on 25 April 1994. Each participating delegation took part in two technical rehearsals in the week approaching the contest, with countries rehearsing in the order in which they would perform. In each country's first rehearsal, held on 25 and 26 April, the delegations were provided with a 15-minute stage-call to prepare the stage and to brief the orchestra, followed by a 25-minute rehearsal. This was then followed by an opportunity to review footage of the rehearsal on video screens and to conduct a 20-minute press conference. The second rehearsals on 27 and 28 April consisted of a 10-minute stage-call and a 20-minute rehearsal. Three dress rehearsals were held with all artists, two in the afternoon and evening of 29 April and one final rehearsal in the afternoon of 30 April, with an audience present at the evening rehearsal on 29 April. The competing delegations were additionally invited to a welcome reception during the week of the event, held on the evening of 25 April in the Dining Hall of Trinity College Dublin.
During the final dress rehearsal on 30 April, the Polish entrant Edyta Górniak performed the second half of her song "To nie ja!" in English. As this rehearsal was also heard by the juries this constituted a break of the contest rules. Although discussions were held on whether to sanction or disqualify the country, Poland was ultimately allowed to compete.