Eurovision Song Contest 1994

The Eurovision Song Contest 1994 was the 39th Eurovision Song Contest and was held on 30 April 1994 in the Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland. As of 2019, it was the last time the contest was held in April. The presenters were Cynthia Ní Mhurchú and Gerry Ryan. The pair hosted the evening in French, English and Irish. Ireland won the contest for the third time in a row, when Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan were the winners with a song written by Brendan Graham, "Rock 'n' Roll Kids". This was a record sixth victory for Ireland, giving it the outright record number of victories at the Eurovision Song Contest, and also the second time Ireland won on home soil. It was also the first time — and to date the only time — that the contest had been won by the same country in three consecutive years.

Eurovision Song Contest 1994
Dates
Grand final30 April 1994
Host
VenuePoint Theatre,
Dublin, Ireland
Presenter(s)Cynthia Ní Mhurchú
Gerry Ryan
Musical directorNoel Kelehan
Directed byPatrick Cowap
Executive supervisorChristian Clausen
Executive producerMoya Doherty
Host broadcasterRaidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ)
Opening actPerformance by Macnas, dancing caricatures of internationally famous Irish artists accompanied by flag bearers
Interval actRiverdance performed by Irish dancing champions Jean Butler, Michael Flatley and the vocal ensemble Anúna, with score composed by Bill Whelan
Websiteeurovision.tv/event/dublin-1994
Participants
Number of entries25
Debuting countries Estonia
 Hungary
 Lithuania
 Poland
 Romania
 Russia
 Slovakia
Returning countriesNone
Non-returning countries Belgium
 Denmark
 Israel
 Italy
 Luxembourg
 Slovenia
 Turkey
Participation map
  •      Participating countries     Countries that participated in the past but not in 1994
Vote
Voting systemEach country awarded 12, 10, 8-1 point(s) to their 10 favourite songs
Nul points Lithuania
Winning song Ireland
"Rock 'n' Roll Kids"

For the first time in Eurovision history, voting was done via satellite instead of by telephone, and as a result, viewers could see the spokespeople onscreen.[1]

The interval act was the first-ever performance of the Irish dancing spectacular Riverdance, featuring Michael Flatley and Jean Butler.

Location
The Point Theatre, Dublin – host venue of the 1994 contest.

Ireland hosted the contest for the fifth time after winning the 1993 contest in Millstreet. Dublin was chosen to be the host city, making it the fourth time that the Eurovision Song Contest was staged in the Irish capital. For the first time, the venue for the contest was the Point Theatre located on the North Wall Quay of the River Liffey, amongst the Dublin Docklands.

Contest overview

The contest opened with a brief film of stars floating in water, fireworks and caricatures dancing around, drinking coffee and biking. The cameras then went live to the venue itself, where dancers dressed in white and wearing caricatured heads of well-known Irish figures, arrived on stage carrying European countries’ flags. The presenters entered the stage spectacularly from a bridge which descended from the roof of the theatre. This year's video postcards had a literary theme, showing contestants reading, fishing and doing other activities around Ireland. The stage, by Paula Farrell, was four times larger than the Millstreet stage, and its design which included a city scene of skyscrapers and video screens plus a backdrop of an ever-changing night sky was based upon the concept of what a futuristic Dublin might look like with one remaining constant being the river Liffey. The floor was painted with dark blue reflective paint to give a watery effect.

To cope with the increasing number of countries wishing to participate in the contest, for 1994 the European Broadcasting Union ruled that the seven lowest-placed countries from the preceding year's contest would not participate. Because Italy and Luxembourg did not enter, the bottom 5 of the 1993 contest were relegated. This meant that Belgium, Denmark, Israel, Slovenia and Turkey did not participate this year opening spaces for the new countries.[2]

Poland took part for the first time and caused a scandal when Edyta Górniak broke the rules by singing her song in English during the dress rehearsal (which is shown to the juries who selected the winner until 1997). Only six countries demanded that Poland should be disqualified, though the rules required 13 countries to complain before Poland could be removed from the competition. The proposed removal did not occur and Poland went on to come 2nd in the contest, the highest placing that any country's debut song had ever achieved until 2007 (the winner in 1956 was Switzerland's second song of the night).[3][4]

When the voting started, Hungary took the lead from the first six juries and were well ahead of all the other countries. However, Ireland powered their way through the score board ending up the winners with a 60-point lead over second-placed Poland.

Participating countries

Returning artists
Artist Country Previous Year(s)
Evridiki  Cyprus 1983 (backing singer for Stavros & Constantina), 1987 (backing singer for Alexia), 1992
Sigga  Iceland 1990 (part of Stjórnin), 1992 (part of Heart 2 Heart)
Elisabeth Andreassen  Norway 1982 (for Sweden, part of Chips)
1985 (part of Bobbysocks!, winner)
Marie Bergman  Sweden 1971 & 1972 (part of Family Four)
Rhonda Heath  Germany 1977 (Backing for Mekado)

Conductors

With the exception of Ireland, each performance had a conductor who directed the orchestra. Eurovision veteran, Ireland's Noel Kelehan (who was the musical director) conducted the songs from three countries, but did not conduct the song from his home country.[upper-alpha 1]

Results

Countries in bold were allowed to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest 1995.

Draw Country Artist Song Language[6][7] Place Points
01  Sweden Marie Bergman & Roger Pontare "Stjärnorna" Swedish 13 48
02  Finland CatCat "Bye Bye Baby" Finnish, English 22 11
03  Ireland Paul Harrington & Charlie McGettigan "Rock 'n' Roll Kids" English 1 226
04  Cyprus Evridiki "Ime anthropos ki ego" (Είμαι άνθρωπος κι εγώ) Greek 11 51
05  Iceland Sigga "Nætur" Icelandic 12 49
06  United Kingdom Frances Ruffelle "We Will Be Free (Lonely Symphony)" English 10 63
07  Croatia Tony Cetinski "Nek' ti bude ljubav sva" Croatian 16 27
08  Portugal Sara Tavares "Chamar a música" Portuguese 8 73
09   Switzerland Duilio "Sto pregando" Italian 19 15
10  Estonia Silvi Vrait "Nagu merelaine" Estonian 24 2
11  Romania Dan Bittman "Dincolo de nori" Romanian 21 14
12  Malta Chris and Moira "More than Love" English 5 97
13  Netherlands Willeke Alberti "Waar is de zon" Dutch 23 4
14  Germany MeKaDo "Wir geben 'ne Party" German1 3 128
15  Slovakia Tublatanka "Nekonečná pieseň" Slovak 19 15
16  Lithuania Ovidijus Vyšniauskas "Lopšinė mylimai" Lithuanian 25 0
17  Norway Elisabeth Andreassen & Jan Werner Danielsen "Duett" Norwegian 6 76
18  Bosnia and Herzegovina Alma & Dejan "Ostani kraj mene" Bosnian 15 39
19  Greece Kostas Bigalis & The Sea Lovers "To trehandiri" (Το τρεχαντήρι) Greek 14 44
20  Austria Petra Frey "Für den Frieden der Welt" German 17 19
21  Spain Alejandro Abad "Ella no es ella" Spanish 18 17
22  Hungary Friderika Bayer "Kinek mondjam el vétkeimet?" Hungarian 4 122
23  Russia Youddiph "Vechny strannik" (Вечный странник) Russian 9 70
24  Poland Edyta Górniak "To nie ja!" Polish 2 166
25  France Nina Morato "Je suis un vrai garçon" French 7 74

Notes

1. ^ Contains some words in English.

Voting structure

Each country had a jury who awarded 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 point(s) for their top ten songs.

With advances in technology, this was the first contest in which the spokesperson for each national jury appeared on-screen, live from their own countries.

In the early stages of the voting it looked as if Hungary was surging to victory in its first-ever Eurovision appearance, winning the maximum twelve points from the first three juries. However, this turned out to be completely deceptive, as from that point on it was virtually one-way traffic for Ireland, which became the first country to win the contest for a third year in succession.

Score sheet
Results
Total score
Sweden
Finland
Ireland
Cyprus
Iceland
United Kingdom
Croatia
Portugal
Switzerland
Estonia
Romania
Malta
Netherlands
Germany
Slovakia
Lithuania
Norway
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Greece
Austria
Spain
Hungary
Russia
Poland
France
Contestants
 Sweden 48272365510512
Finland 11110
Ireland 226107812101212121085121261012101010101288
Cyprus 51103525124253
Iceland 498166331336144
United Kingdom 631568852432413353
Croatia 2710125
Portugal 7355888513127416
Switzerland 15825
Estonia 22
Romania 14626
Malta 9746102174671013107127
Netherlands 44
Germany 128635677101031247417281277
Slovakia 15123
Lithuania 0
Norway 76731014318472161558
Bosnia and Herzegovina 3924787110
Greece 4424126415442
Austria 19173215
Spain 175282
Hungary 122121212102514421078383127
Russia 70434512135663466101
Poland 1668716128710127281041268128612
France 7432456688727106

12 points

Below is a summary of all 12 point in the final:

N.ContestantVoting nation
8IrelandCroatia, Germany, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Switzerland
5PolandAustria, Estonia, France, Lithuania, United Kingdom
4HungaryIreland, Finland, Poland, Sweden
2GermanyHungary, Romania
1 CroatiaSlovakia
CyprusGreece
GreeceCyprus
MaltaBosnia and Herzegovina
PortugalSpain
SlovakiaMalta

International broadcasting

Other involved countries
 FR Yugoslavia
After the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had participated in the 1992 contest. While the country did not participate, the third channel of Radio Television of Serbia broadcast the show.

Commentators

Participating countries

Non-participating countries

Participating countries

The participating countries that provided radio broadcasts for the event are listed below.

Non-participating countries

Spokespersons

National jury members
  •  Estonia – Jaak Joala, Tiit Made, Alo Mattiisen, Hedvig Hanson
  •  Finland – Kikka Isoviita, Mikko Jokinen, Jorma Haranen, Kai Helminen, Kisu Jernström, Jere Pesonen, Pauliina Pohjanheimo, Merja Rajala, Kaj "Tico" Takolander, Pentti-Oskari Kangas, Mari Koskela, Merja Koskela, Virpi Koutu, Seppo Kulmala, Jaana Lallukka, Mimi Lindquist-Grönblom
  •  Greece – Evangelos Alexandropoulos, Nikolaos Tsolakis, Giorgos Vrouvas, Giorgos Kleftogiorgos, Kosmas Athousis, Maria Alefanti, Eleftherios Apostolopoulos, Christos Venetidis, Georgia Giannopoulou, Anna Gliati, Rozy Kasparian, Evgenia Koutsoulieri, Ekaterini Lygoni, Stamatis Panagiotaras, Ourania Papakonstantopoulou, Archontia Harismidou
  •  Ireland – Jack McCarthy
  •  Netherlands – Arnold Mühren
  •  Poland – Anna Maria Jopek (future Polish entrant at Eurovision Song Contest 1997), Maciej Chmiel, Marek Niedźwiecki, Irena Santor, Marek Gaszyński, Włodzimierz Korcz, Tadeusz Woźniak, Szymon Majewski, Tomasz Justyński, Małgorzata Szniak, Anna Rutkowska, Jacek Olechowski, Agnieszka Gach, Ilona Skrętna, Maria Teodorowicz, Elżbieta Chełstowska
  •  Portugal – Jan Van Dijck, Rita Guerra, Dina
  •  Slovakia – Silvia Rigová, Zlatica Bírová, Martina Lišková, Iveta Lábska, Gabriela Husková, Augustín Rebro, Ján Pavúr, Tibor Horniak, Jozef Martiš, Dagmar Martišová, Daniela Mintálová, Štefan Ondek, Pavol Zelenay, Mária Slováková, Ivan Popelár, Július Ebers
  •  Spain – Belén Casla (economist), Daniel Santos (Eurovision Network delegate), Purificación Blanco (journalist at El Semanal TV), Àlex Sisteré (actor), Susana García (actress), Andrés Vázquez (bullfighter), Alejandra Botto (actress), Serafín Zubiri (singer, Spanish entrant at Eurovision Song Contest 1992 and 2000), Elena Benarroch (fashion designer), Francisco (singer), Dora Dora (TV hostess), Francisco Herrera (director of Cadena Dial), Victoria Rodríguez de Miguel (student), Manuel Liétor (businessman), Sofía Balseiro (bank branch manager), Javier de la Vega (student)[33]

Notes
  1. Both Irish commentator Pat Kenny[5] and British commentator Terry Wogan credit Kelehan as the conductor of the Irish entry, only Kenny specifies he only leads a minimal arrangement of drums and bass. Nevertheless, he didn't take the traditional conductor's bow, and virtually no drum or bass accompaniment can be heard during the performance.

References
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