Eurovision Song Contest 2000

The opening of the competition began with a video about contemporary Sweden. The mouth of the logo, superimposed on the images, spelled out the names of the twenty-four participating countries. The video ended with an aerial view of the Globen. The camera then showed the interior of the Globen Arena plunged into darkness, then made a close-up on the stage. Caroline Lundgren, violinist of the Stockholm Youth Symphony Orchestra, dressed in a traditional Swedish costume, appeared and exclaimed: "Welcome Europe!" The stage then lit up and the spectators began to applaud. The five decorative pillars moved apart to give way to Kattis Ahlström and Anders Lundin. They concluded the opening with the customary greetings, which they pronounced by mixing the national languages of the participating countries.

The interval-act began with a violin solo, performed by Caroline Lundgren. Then came a video titled "Once Upon a Time Europe Was Covered With Ice", a movie/song directed, composed and edited by Johan Söderberg and produced by John Nordling.[11] After the video, violinist Caroline Lundgren reappeared on the stage with drummer Strängnäs Trumkorps plus street musicians from Stockholm and dancers from the Bounce Streetdance Company.

Each participating broadcaster was represented in the contest by one song, which was required to be no longer than three minutes in duration. A maximum of six performers were allowed on stage during each country's performance, and all performers must have reached the age of 16 in the year of the contest. Selected entries were not permitted to be released commercially before 1 January 2000, and were then only allowed to be released in the country they represented until after the contest was held. Entries were required to be selected by each country's participating broadcaster by 28 February, and the final submission date for all selected entries to be received by the contest organisers was set for 10 March. This submission was required to include a sound recording of the entry and backing track for use during the contest, a video presentation of the song on stage being performed by the artists, and the text of the song lyrics in its original language and translations in French and English for distribution to the participating broadcasters, their commentators and juries.[7]

The results of the 2000 contest were determined through the same scoring system as had first been introduced in 1975: 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. Each participating country was required to use televoting to determine their points. Viewers had a total of five minutes to register their vote by calling one of twenty-two different telephone numbers to represent the twenty-three competing entries except that which represented their own country, with voting lines opening following the performance of the last competing entry. Once phone lines were opened a video recap containing short clips of each competing entry with the accompanying phone number for voting was shown in order to aid viewers during the voting window. Systems were also put in place to prevent lobby groups from one country voting for their song by travelling to other countries.[7]

Countries which were unable to hold a televote due to technological limitations were granted an exception, and their points were determined by an assembled jury of eight individuals, which was required to be split evenly between members of the public and music professionals, comprised additionally of an equal number of men and women, and below and above 30 years of age. Countries using televoting were also required to appoint a back-up jury of the same composition which would be called into action upon technical failure preventing the televote results from being used. 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; if a tie still remained, the youngest jury member would have the deciding vote.[7]

Each entry was preceded by a video postcard which served as an introduction to the competing artists from each country, as well as providing an opportunity to showcase the running artistic theme of the event and creating a transition between entries to allow stage crew to make changes on stage.[12][13] The postcards used to introduce each country participating involved Swedish themes that incorporated each nation in some respect. All the postcards were filmed in Stockholm, except for the Swedish postcard, which was filmed in Germany. The various themes were as following, listed in appearance order:

Due to the high number of countries wishing to enter the contest a relegation system was introduced in 1993 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. The twenty-four participants were made up of the previous year's winning country, "Big Four" countries, the thirteen countries which had obtained the highest average points total over the preceding five contests, and any eligible countries which did not compete in the 1999 contest. 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.[7]

A new addition to the relegation rules specified that for the 2000 contest and future editions the four largest financial contributors to the contest – Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Spain – would automatically qualify each year and be exempt from relegation. This new "Big Four" group of countries was created to ensure the financial viability of the event and was prompted by a number of poor results in previous years for some of the countries, which if occurred again in 1999 could have resulted in those countries being relegated from 2000 contest.[7]

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal and Slovenia were therefore excluded from participating in the 1999 contest, to make way for the return of Finland, Macedonia, Romania, Russia and Switzerland, and new debuting country Latvia.

The calculations used to determine the countries relegated for the 2000 contest are outlined in the table below.[7]

Table key

  Automatic qualifier

  Qualifier

Rank	Country	Average	Yearly Point Totals
			1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
1	United Kingdom	116.80	76	77	227	166	38
2	Israel	115.33	81	DNQ		172	93
3	Sweden	90.40	100	100	36	53	163
4	Ireland	89.00	44	162	157	64	18
5	Croatia	84.60	91	98	24	131	79[lower-alpha 1]
6	Malta	81.40	76	68	66	165	32
7	Netherlands	76.00		78	5	150	71
8	Estonia	75.50		94	82	36	90
9	Norway	75.20	148	114	0	79	35
10	Denmark	62.67	92	DNQ	25		71
11	Germany	62.25	1	DNQ	22	86	140
12	Iceland	61.50	31	51	18		146
13	Cyprus	57.60	79	72	98	37	2
14	Austria	53.00	67	68	12		65
15	Spain	50.80	119	17	96	21	1
16	Turkey	49.00	21	57	121	25	21
17	Belgium	47.50	8	22		122	38
18	Slovenia	45.40	84	16	60	17	50
19	France	44.80	94	18	95	3	14
20	Bosnia and Herzegovina	33.75	14	13	22		86
21	Portugal	29.00	5	92	0	36	12
22	Poland	27.20	15	31	54	19	17
23	Lithuania	13.00					13

Olsen Brothers brought Denmark its second Eurovision Song Contest victory.

The contest took place on 13 May 2000. The table below outlines the participating countries, the order in which they performed, the competing artists and songs, and the results of the voting.[4]

The contest featured three representatives who had previously performed as lead artists. Alexandros Panayi made a second appearance in the contest, having previously represented Cyprus in 1995 contest,[15] Roger Pontare represented Sweden in 1994 contest[16] and Serafin Zubiri represented Spain in 1992 contest.[17]

The winner was Denmark represented by the song "Fly on the Wings of Love", composed and written by Jørgen Olsen and performed by Olsen Brothers. This marked Denmark's second victory in the contest, following its first win in 1963.[18] Belgium meanwhile finished in last place for the eighth time.[19]

Prior to the contest Estonia, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands were the favorites to win, with internet polls topped by the last two entries. It therefore came as a surprise to many when Denmark ended up winning, because Denmark was not a pre-contest favorite. Russia finished second and after the contest the Russian delegation petitioned for the disqualification of the winner because a vocoder had been used during the performance. This was not upheld by the EBU.[4]

Participants and results of the Eurovision Song Contest 2000[20][21]

R/O	Country	Artist	Song	Language[22]	Points	Place
1	Israel	PingPong	"Sameach" (שמח)	Hebrew[lower-alpha 2]	7	22
2	Netherlands	Linda Wagenmakers	"No Goodbyes"	English	40	13
3	United Kingdom	Nicki French	"Don't Play That Song Again"	English	28	16
4	Estonia	Ines	"Once in a Lifetime"	English	98	4
5	France	Sofia Mestari	"On aura le ciel"	French	5	23
6	Romania	Taxi	"The Moon"	English	25	17
7	Malta	Claudette Pace	"Desire"	English[lower-alpha 3]	73	8
8	Norway	Charmed	"My Heart Goes Boom"	English	57	11
9	Russia	Alsou	"Solo"	English	155	2
10	Belgium	Nathalie Sorce	"Envie de vivre"	French	2	24
11	Cyprus	Voice	"Nomiza" (Νόμιζα)	Greek, Italian	8	21
12	Iceland	August and Telma	"Tell Me!"	English	45	12
13	Spain	Serafín Zubiri	"Colgado de un sueño"	Spanish	18	18
14	Denmark	Olsen Brothers	"Fly on the Wings of Love"	English	195	1
15	Germany	Stefan Raab	"Wadde hadde dudde da?"	German, English	96	5
16	Switzerland	Jane Bogaert	"La vita cos'è?"	Italian	14	20
17	Croatia	Goran Karan	"Kad zaspu anđeli"	Croatian	70	9
18	Sweden	Roger Pontare	"When Spirits Are Calling My Name"	English	88	7
19	Macedonia	XXL	"100% te ljubam" (100% те љубам)	Macedonian, English	29	15
20	Finland	Nina Åström	"A Little Bit"	English	18	18
21	Latvia	Brainstorm	"My Star"	English	136	3
22	Turkey	Pınar Ayhan and the SOS	"Yorgunum Anla"	Turkish, English	59	10
23	Ireland	Eamonn Toal	"Millennium of Love"	English	92	6
24	Austria	The Rounder Girls	"All to You"	English	34	14

Below is a summary of all 12 points in the final.

N.	Contestant	Nation(s) giving 12 points
8	Denmark	Germany,  Iceland,  Ireland,  Israel,  Latvia,  Russia,  Sweden,  United Kingdom
4	Latvia	Belgium,  Estonia,  Finland,  Norway
	Russia	Croatia,  Cyprus,  Malta,  Romania
3	Germany	Austria,  Spain,  Switzerland
2	Turkey	France,  Netherlands
1	Iceland	Denmark
	Romania	Macedonia
	Sweden	Turkey

Each country nominated a spokesperson who was responsible for announcing, in English or French, the votes for their respective country.[27][7] As had been the case since the 1994 contest, the spokespersons were connected via satellite and appeared in vision during the broadcast.[28] Spokespersons at the 2000 contest are listed below.[29]

The Barbara Dex Award is the award, created by fansite House of Eurovision, was awarded to the performer deemed to have been the "worst dressed" among the participants.[107][108] The winner in 2000 was Belgium's representative Nathalie Sorce, as determined by the visitors of the website House of Eurovision.[109][110][111]