Everything you need to know about ESC 2024 in Sweden

Swedish cities had up until 12 June to apply as a host city for ESC 2024. In the end, Malmö prevailed against finalists Stockholm, Gothenburg and Örnsköldsvik, as the European Broadcasting Corporation (EBU) announced on 7 July. The city announced in mid-September that it would invest 30 million kronor, or around 2.5 million euros, into the event.

Here are the dates

• 7 May 2024: First semi-final
• 9 May 2024: Second semi-final
• 11 May 2024: Final

Who are the participants and what are the requirements?

To begin with, there are the so-called "Big-Five" countries, which automatically qualify for the ESC final. These are Germany, France, UK, Italy and Spain, as well as Sweden as the winning country in 2023. The Swede Loreen was victorious in Liverpool with her song 'Tattoo'.

All other countries must qualify in the two semi-finals. The order of the respective performances is decided by the producers to avoid, for example, having songs with similar styles back-to-back. Luxembourg is back again this year, with the country's last participation being over 30 years ago. The Grand Duchy has already won the competition five times and is thus the third most successful country in ESC history.

What always raises eyebrows is the participation of Australia. Despite not being a European country, it is a member of the EBU. As part of the 60th ESC anniversary in 2015, Australia was allowed to participate for the very first time and was directly placed in the final, which was already an unprecedented situation. Since then, Australia has been a regular participant and has signed a seven-year contract with the EBU, allowing it to participate every year. The collaboration with Australian broadcaster SBS was renewed this year, but the conditions for the future remain unknown.

Every country interested in participating could sign up between 15 September and 11 October, and could withdraw their participation without risking a fine. On 5 December, the EBU published the final list of the 37 countries that will officially participate in the Eurovision Song Contest 2024.

Non-participating countries

As in 2023, North Macedonia will not participate in ESC 2024. This is in no small part due to costs, with Montenegro also postponing their 2023 participation for financial reasons. North Macedonia last qualified in 2019, and in the two previous years only made it to the semi-finals. While broadcaster MRT confirmed the country's withdrawal for 2024, it's still conceivable that they will be back in 2025.

Romania was due to participate, but broadcaster TVR cancelled plans; however, they are working towards returning in the future. Slovakia has also declined participation, citing internal reasons.

The new broadcaster TV Monaco has not yet completed its evaluation of ESC, but it is hoped that the micro-state will return to the ESC in 2025.

Banned countries

Belarus was suspended from the EBU in 2021 and may not participate in the song contest until further notice. Since the invasion of Ukraine, Russia is also banned from joining.

Where are tickets available?

Official ticket sales began at 10am on 28 November. Ticket prices are between €13-€330, and are only available via the website of Ticketmaster Sweden.

Slogan "United By Music" remains

The slogan for ESC 2023 in Liverpool, "United By Music", remains for Malmö this year and will be used continuously in the future.

The slogan was created by the BBC and symbolises the partnership between the UK as host country and Ukraine as winner in 2022. The message is that music has the power to unite people around the world.

Eurovision pre-parties

These are essentially an excellent opportunity for each country to build some hype in the run-up to the official ESC dates - and for many ESC fans, they are an absolute and unquestionable must-go event!

A couple of countries have already confirmed their shows - Israel, for instance, will be hosting "Israel calling" on 11 April in Tel Aviv, while 13 April sees "Eurovision in Concert" in Amsterdam. Spain is taking things a step further, with "PrePartyES" spanning across three days and three locations: two of them have been confirmed so far, including an event in Madrid on 28-30 March, and Barcelona 4-6 April.

Not to be outdone, London is hosting the imaginatively named "London Eurovision Party" on 7 April, and it has already been completely sold out. Host country Sweden will of course also get in on the action, with the "Nordic Eurovision party" taking place in Stockholm on 14 April.

Those responsible for ESC in Sweden

Much like how Luxembourg relied on an international jury to select our finalists ahead of the public vote in the Luxembourg Song Contest, Sweden too relies on an organising team with an enormous amount of experience.

Back in June, the public broadcaster SVT announced that the executive producer for ESC 2024 would be Ebba Adielsson. She's joined by Christel Tholse Willers who will be in charge of communication, press, and marketing - a position she also held for the 2013 ESC in Malmö.

Having also worked on the 2016 edition in Stockholm, Tobias Åberg has been put in charge of the technical production side. Åberg has been part of several ESC productions, most recently in Liverpool for the BBC.

Then there is Johan Bernhagen, who in partnership with Åberg is tasked with financial management as well as technical production. He was the executive producer of ESC 2016 together with Martin Österdahl, and was head of production in 2013 in Malmö.

And finally, September saw Christer Björkman brought in as competition producer and Per Blankens as TV producer.

New voting rules

2023 saw the introduction of new voting rules in the ESC. Specifically, even people in countries that are not present at the ESC are now able to vote for their favourite act(s) online - though they do have to pay. Those votes are then tallied up and presented as points given from "Rest of the World", with equal weight to a participating country. In addition, there is no longer a jury in the semi-finals, which is now decided by phone vote - 10 from the first semi-final, and another 10 from the second.

By the way, in 2023 Luxembourg was among the top-10 countries in terms of the number of votes added to the "Rest of the World" category!

These changes came about after the Norwegian public service broadcaster NRK brought a possible jury voting reform to the EBU. The background to this contention is that Finnish singer Käärijä lost to Swedish singer Loreen in 2023 despite a 133-point lead following the phone vote, with the jury votes changing the outcome of the contest in Loreen's favour.