Eurovision Song Contest 1988
The Eurovision Song Contest 1988 was the 33rd edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, held on 30 April 1988 at the RDS Simmonscourt Pavilion in Dublin, Ireland, and presented by Pat Kenny and Michelle Rocca. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union and host broadcaster RTÉ, who staged the event after winning the for with the song "Hold Me Now" by Johnny Logan.
Broadcasters from 22 countries submitted entries, however, ultimately rescinded its entry after its selected song was determined to have been performed several years prior to the contest, breaking the contest rules. The winner was with the song "Ne partez pas sans moi", composed by Atilla Şereftuğ, with lyrics by Nella Martinetti, and performed by Céline Dion. It was Switzerland's second contest win, and remains as of 2026 the last winning song to be performed in French. The,,, and rounded out the top five positions, with the UK achieving its eleventh runner-up placing, while placed last for the sixth time, receiving nul points for the second time.
Location
The 1988 contest took place in Dublin, Ireland, following the country's victory at the with the song "Hold Me Now", performed by Johnny Logan. It was the third time that Ireland hosted the contest, following the and events also held in Dublin.The selected venue was the Simmonscourt Pavilion of the Royal Dublin Society, a multi-purpose venue in the Ballsbridge area of the city and previous host of the contest in 1981. RDS Simmonscourt, following construction of the stage and other technical elements, was expected to accommodate approximately 1,500 audience members.
Participants
Broadcasters from the same 22 countries that participated the submitted entries for the 1988 contest, with the draw to determine the running order of the entries held on 11 December 1987. However, a number of weeks before the event, it was discovered that the song selected to represent, "Thimame", written by John Vickers and Aristos Moschovakis, and sung by Yiannis Dimitrou, previously competed in the under the title "San to rok-en-rol", and was therefore ineligible to compete at the contest. The Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation subsequently announced on 12 March 1988 that it nullified the selection of "Thimame" as its entry; as the rules of the national selection did not provide for a second-placed song to be declared, and as there was not enough time to stage a second selection process to determine a replacement entry, CyBC was ultimately unable to participate in the contest.Several artists who competed in the 1988 edition of the contest participated in the previous editions for the same country. Tommy Körberg represented ; the duo Hot Eyes, also known as Kirsten and Søren, represented and ; the group MFÖ represented ; Dora represented ; and Yardena Arazi returned to compete as a solo artist, after representing as part of the group Chocolate Menta Mastik, and co-hosting the. Additionally, previously performed as the backing group for, and among Yardena Arazi's backing vocalists were Yehuda Tamir and, members of the Israeli group Milk and Honey that won the contest for.
Each participating delegation could nominate a separate musical director to lead the orchestra during its country's performance, with the host musical director also available to conduct for those countries that did not nominate their own conductor. All entries were accompanied by the orchestra, except for and, who were accompanied solely by backing track. In the case of the Italian entry, the backing track used featured the contest's first fade-out ending.
| Country | Broadcaster | Artist | Song | Language | Songwriter | Conductor |
| ORF | Wilfried | "Lisa Mona Lisa" | German | Harald Neuwirth | ||
| RTBF | Reynaert | "Laissez briller le soleil" | French | Dany Willem | ||
| DR | Hot Eyes | "Ka' du se hva' jeg sa'" | Danish | |||
| YLE | "Nauravat silmät muistetaan" | Finnish | Ossi Runne | |||
| France 2 | Gérard Lenorman | "Chanteur de charme" | French | Guy Mattéoni | ||
| BR | "Lied für einen Freund" | German | Michael Thatcher | |||
| ERT | "Clown" | Greek | Dimitris Sakislis | Haris Andreadis | ||
| RÚV | "Sókrates" | Icelandic | Sverrir Stormsker | |||
| RTÉ | Jump the Gun | "Take Him Home" | English | Peter Eades | Noel Kelehan | |
| IBA | Yardena Arazi | "Ben Adam" | Hebrew | |||
| RAI | Luca Barbarossa | "Ti scrivo" | Italian | Luca Barbarossa | ||
| CLT | Lara Fabian | "Croire" | French | Régis Dupré | ||
| NOS | Gerard Joling | "Shangri-La" | Dutch | Harry van Hoof | ||
| NRK | Karoline Krüger | "For vår jord" | Norwegian | |||
| RTP | Dora | "Voltarei" | Portuguese | José Calvário | ||
| TVE | La Década | "La chica que yo quiero " | Spanish | Javier de Juan | ||
| SVT | Tommy Körberg | "Stad i ljus" | Swedish | Py Bäckman | Anders Berglund | |
| SRG SSR | Céline Dion | "Ne partez pas sans moi" | French | Atilla Şereftuğ | ||
| TRT | MFÖ | "Sufi " | Turkish | Turhan Yükseler | ||
| BBC | Scott Fitzgerald | "Go" | English | Julie Forsyth | Ronnie Hazlehurst | |
| JRT | "Mangup" | Serbo-Croatian |
Production
The Eurovision Song Contest 1988 was produced by the Irish public broadcaster RTÉ. Liam Miller served as executive producer, Declan Lowney served as director, Paula Farrell and Michael Grogan served as designers, and Noel Kelehan served as musical director, leading the RTÉ Concert Orchestra. On behalf of the contest organisers, the European Broadcasting Union, the event was overseen by Frank Naef as executive supervisor. The presenters of the contest were broadcaster Pat Kenny, and television announcer and Miss Ireland 1980 Michelle Rocca; the duo were announced by RTÉ in February 1988 following auditions held in the previous weeks. It was the first time since that more than one person presented the contest.Several technical innovations and improvements were introduced with the 1988 contest, spearheaded by Miller and Lowney, whose goal was to increase the contest's appeal among a younger audience. The traditional physical scoreboard was replaced by a computer-generated version, displayed on two video walls provided by Philips and constructed on either side of the stage. These video walls also displayed the performances and footage of the artists in the green room during the voting sequence, allowing the audience in the arena to see the televised footage within the venue for the first time. Similar to the previous year's edition, the 1988 contest implemented a modern feel within both the stage design by Paula Farrell and Michael Grogan, and the graphic design by Maria Quigley. The stage, at over in length, was the largest ever built for the contest at that point, and took up almost a third of the space within the Simmonscourt Pavilion. The stage design, which created an illusion of depth, alongside tight camera shots of the audience and creative lighting use, resulted in an overall impression that the contest was being held in a vast and packed arena, rather than the modest space of the Simmonscourt Pavilion.
Rehearsals for the participating artists began on 25 April 1988. Two technical rehearsals were conducted for each participating delegation in the week approaching the contest, with countries rehearsing in the order in which they would perform. The first rehearsals, comprising a 15-minute stage call and 35-minute performance, were held on 25 and 26 April, followed by a press conference for each delegation and the accredited press. Each country's second rehearsals were held on 27 and 28 April, with a 10-minute stage call and 25 minutes for performances. On 28 April, the contest venue received a visit from the Taoiseach Charles Haughey.
Three dress rehearsals were held with all artists, held in the afternoon and evening of 29 April and in the afternoon of 30 April; the second rehearsal was filmed with a live audience present as a production stand-by in case the live event was disrupted. During the contest week, 's Tommy Körberg had been suffering from a throat infection; although he was able to perform during the event-proper, the songwriter of the Swedish entry, Py Bäckman, performed the entry in his stead at the 29 April evening dress rehearsal.
Format
Each participating country submitted one song limited to three minutes or less and performed in the language, or one of the languages, of the country which it represented. Up to six performers were allowed on stage during each entry, accompanied by the orchestra and/or a backing track; any backing tracks had to include all the instruments featured on stage being mimed by the performers and could not contain vocals of any kind.The results of the 1988 contest were determined through the scoring system 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 eight songs 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, who were all required to be members of the public with no connection to the music industry, split evenly between men and women and across four age groups: 15–25, 26–35, 36–45, and 46–60. 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; these votes were placed at the end of each country's performance and collected and tallied by the non-voting jury chairperson, who determined the points distribution after all countries performed. When 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. The jury composition and voting process were modified slightly compared to the 1987 contest, due to the increase in the number of participating countries in recent years, expanding from eleven members who awarded between one and five votes for each song.
As established at the, in the event that two or more countries finished in first place with the same number of points after all countries awarded their points, the artists representing these countries would perform their entries again, and the juries in all countries not involved in the tie-break would determine the winner, with each country's jury selecting their favourite of the entries by a show of hands of all jurors. If after all countries determined their favourites and there was still a tie for first place, the countries involved in this tie would be declared joint winners.