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

Location

hosted the contest for the fifth time after winning the 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.
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. 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.
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

Conductors

Each performance had a conductor who conducted the orchestra. Eurovision veteran, Ireland's Noel Kelehan conducted the songs from three countries, but did not conduct the song from his home country.
Countries in bold were allowed to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest 1995.
DrawCountryArtistSongLanguagePlacePoints
01'Marie Bergman & Roger Pontare"Stjärnorna"Swedish1348
02CatCat"Bye Bye Baby"Finnish, English2211
03'Paul Harrington & Charlie McGettigan"Rock 'n' Roll Kids"English1226
04'Evridiki"Ime anthropos ki ego" Greek1151
05'Sigga"Nætur"Icelandic1249
06'Frances Ruffelle"We Will Be Free "English1063
07'Tony Cetinski"Nek' ti bude ljubav sva"Croatian1627
08'Sara Tavares"Chamar a música"Portuguese873
09Duilio"Sto pregando"Italian1915
10Silvi Vrait"Nagu merelaine"Estonian242
11Dan Bittman"Dincolo de nori"Romanian2114
12'Chris and Moira"More than Love"English597
13Willeke Alberti"Waar is de zon"Dutch234
14'MeKaDo"Wir geben 'ne Party"German3128
15Tublatanka"Nekonečná pieseň"Slovak1915
16Ovidijus Vyšniauskas"Lopšinė mylimai"Lithuanian250
17'Elisabeth Andreassen & Jan Werner Danielsen"Duett"Norwegian676
18'Alma & Dejan"Ostani kraj mene"Bosnian1539
19'Kostas Bigalis & The Sea Lovers"To trehandiri" Greek1444
20'Petra Frey"Für den Frieden der Welt"German1719
21'Alejandro Abad"Ella no es ella"Spanish1817
22'Friderika Bayer"Kinek mondjam el vétkeimet?"Hungarian4122
23'Youddiph"Vechny strannik" Russian970
24'Edyta Górniak"To nie ja!"Polish2166
25'Nina Morato"Je suis un vrai garçon"French774

Notes

Voting structure

Each country had a jury who awarded 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 point 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

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
1CroatiaSlovakia
1CyprusGreece
1GreeceCyprus
1MaltaBosnia and Herzegovina
1PortugalSpain
1SlovakiaMalta

International broadcasting

Other involved countries

; : 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

Television

Participating countries

Participating countries

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