Eurovision Song Contest 2000
The Eurovision Song Contest 2000 was the 45th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, held on 13 May 2000 at the Globe Arena in Stockholm, Sweden, and presented by Kattis Ahlström and Anders Lundin. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union and host broadcaster Sveriges Television, who staged the event after winning the for with the song "Take Me to Your Heaven" by Charlotte Nilsson. With an audience of 13,000 people present, the 2000 contest was the largest seen in its history until that point.
Broadcasters from twenty-four countries participated in the contest.,,, and, which had participated in the 1999 contest, were relegated after achieving the lowest average points totals over the preceding five contests. These countries were replaced by in its first contest appearance,,, and which were relegated from the previous year's event, and which returned after a two-year absence.
The winner was with the song "Fly on the Wings of Love", written by and performed by the Olsen Brothers. Although Denmark was not a pre-contest favourite to win the title, "Fly on the Wings of Love" received the third-highest points total yet seen in the contest, gaining 195 points, and the song went on to become a success in singles charts across Europe.,,, and rounded out the top five, with Russia and Estonia achieving their best ever results, and Latvia achieving one of the highest placings for a début entry in the contest's history. The 2000 contest was the first to be broadcast over the internet, with a webcast of the live show available in Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia through Microsoft's MSN portals.
Location
The 2000 contest took place in Stockholm, Sweden, following the country's victory at the with the song "Take Me to Your Heaven", performed by Charlotte Nilsson. It was the fourth time that Sweden had staged the contest, following the, and contests held in Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö, respectively. The selected venue was the Globe Arena, also known as Globen in Swedish, an indoor arena first opened in 1989 and the world's largest hemispherical building. With capacity for over 16,000 people, which was reduced slightly to 13,000 for the contest, the Globe Arena was the largest venue the Eurovision Song Contest had ever seen at that point.Host broadcaster Sveriges Television approached venues in three citiesnamely Gothenburg, Malmö and Stockholmto establish a suitable host city and venue for the contest. The venues chosen following this initial round of discussions were the Scandinavium in Gothenburg, which had previously hosted the 1985 contest; Malmömässan in Malmö; and Globen in Stockholm. Malmö was subsequently eliminated as a potential host city, due to high costs required to complete a suitable arena within the Malmömässan area and which would still have a relatively small audience capacity compared to the other venues on offer. Of the remaining options, Stockholm and Globen were ultimately chosen by SVT managing director to host the event. Stockholm's bid won out over Gothenburg due to the lower costs of producing the event in the capital as well as with Stockholm having not hosted the event since 1975.
Participants
Per the rules of the contest twenty-four countries were allowed to participate in the 2000 contest, one more than the twenty-three countries that participated in the. entered the contest for the first time, and,,,, and returned after being absent from the previous year's event. 1999 participants,,, and did not participate in this year's contest.Several of the performing artists had previously competed as lead artists in past editions. Serafín Zubiri competed in the contest for a second time, having previously participated for. Roger Pontare competed as a solo artist in this year's edition, following his appearance for where he competed alongside Marie Bergman. The two members of the Cypriot duo, Alexandros Panayi and Christina Argyri, had also both participated in Eurovision before, with Panayi having previously represented, while Argyri had been a backing performer at the same contest. A number of former participating artists also returned to perform as backing vocalists for some of the competing entries:, having previously represented alongside, returned to support the Icelandic duo as a backing singer; Albano Carrisi, who twice represented and with Romina Power as Al Bano and Romina Power, supported Switzerland's on stage; and, a member of the group that represented, was a backing singer for Malta's Claudette Pace in this year's event. Additionally, competed for Ireland in this year's contest, having previously served as backing vocalist for.
| Country | Broadcaster | Artist | Song | Language | Songwriter |
| ORF | "All to You" | English | Dave Moskin | ||
| RTBF | "Envie de vivre" | French | Silvio Pezzuto | ||
| HRT | Goran Karan | "Kad zaspu anđeli" | Croatian | ||
| CyBC | "Nomiza" | Greek, Italian | |||
| DR | Olsen Brothers | "Fly on the Wings of Love" | English | ||
| ETV | Ines | "Once in a Lifetime" | English | ||
| YLE | Nina Åström | "A Little Bit" | English | ||
| France Télévision | "On aura le ciel" | French | |||
| NDR | Stefan Raab | "Wadde hadde dudde da?" | German, English | Stefan Raab | |
| RÚV | and | "Tell Me!" | English | ||
| RTÉ | "Millennium of Love" | English | |||
| IBA | PingPong | "Sameach" | Hebrew | ||
| LTV | Brainstorm | "My Star" | English | Renārs Kaupers | |
| MRT | "100% te ljubam" | Macedonian, English | |||
| PBS | Claudette Pace | "Desire" | English | ||
| NOS | Linda | "No Goodbyes" | English | ||
| NRK | "My Heart Goes Boom" | English | |||
| TVR | Taxi | "The Moon" | English | ||
| ORT | Alsou | "Solo" | English | ||
| TVE | Serafín Zubiri | "Colgado de un sueño" | Spanish | ||
| SVT | Roger Pontare | "When Spirits Are Calling My Name" | English | ||
| SRG SSR | "La vita cos'è?" | Italian | |||
| TRT | and | "Yorgunum Anla" | Turkish, English | ||
| BBC | Nicki French | "Don't Play That Song Again" | English |
Qualification
Due to the high number of countries wishing to enter the contest, a relegation system was introduced in in order to reduce the number of countries which could compete in each year's contest. Any relegated countries would be able to return the following year, thus allowing all countries the opportunity to compete in at least one in every two editions. The relegation rules introduced for the 1997 contest were again utilised ahead of the 2000 contest, based on each country's average points total in previous contests. However the rules were modified for 2000 to ensure that the four participating countries which provide the largest financial contribution towards the organisation of the contest would be given an automatic place in the contest every year. This groupcomprising,, and the was subsequently dubbed the "Big Four" group of countries. Alongside the previous year's winning country and the Big Four, the remaining places in the 2000 contest were given to any eligible countries which had not competed in the 1999 contest, and the countries which had competed in 1999 that had obtained the highest average points total over the preceding five contests. In cases where the average was identical between two or more countries, the total number of points scored in the most recent contest determined the final order.,,, and were therefore excluded from participating in the 2000 contest, to make way for the return of Finland, Macedonia, Romania, Russia and Switzerland, and debuting country Latvia. Broadcasters in,, and, participating countries from the which had not competed in 1999, and were therefore eligible to participate in 2000, decided not to enter, reportedly due to financial reasons.
The calculations used to determine the countries relegated for the 2000 contest are outlined in the table below.
'''Table key'''
Production
The Eurovision Song Contest 2000 was produced SVT; Svante Stockselius served as executive producer, Peter Lundin served as producer, Marius Bratten served as director, and Mikael Varhelyi and Kristofer Röhr served as designers. On behalf of the contest organisers, the European Broadcasting Union, the event was overseen by Christine Marchal-Ortiz as scrutineer. The contest was presented by the journalist Kattis Ahlström and the television presenter Anders Lundin.The graphic design, including the contest's logo, scoreboard, on-screen overlays and postcards, was developed by Stockholm Design Lab. The chosen logo, presented publicly in early 2000, was a pair of open lips, and described as "a sensual, yet stylistically pure, mouth representing song, dialogue and speech" by its designers; ahead of the this logo was also considered by contest organisers when developing the contest's new generic logo for that edition. The logo also featured prominently as part of the set design; the outline of the mouth featured on a display next to the stage and was filled with a distorted form of each country's national flag as its entry was performed. The 2000 contest was the first to incorporate LED display technology within the set design, with five LED pillars featuring on stage during each performance and displaying images designed to complement each song's theme or presentation and producing a unique backdrop to each performance.
A compilation album featuring all 24 competing entries was released within Europe ahead of the contest, through the German record labels Ariola and BMG. This was the first time an official album had been commissioned by the organisers and followed a previous attempt at an album for the 1999 contest which failed to contain all entries in that year's contest due to copyright issues.