(Geneva) Basel, the major city on the Rhine in Switzerland, will host the 2025 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, the biggest singing competition in the world.
“The grand finale of the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 will take place at the St. Jakobshalle in Basel on Saturday 17 May 2025,” the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organises the contest, announced.
Basel, located on the banks of the Rhine on the border with France and Germany, was chosen over Geneva to host the 69e edition whose 2024 vintage was won by the non-binary Swiss artist Nemo.
Tradition dictates that the country of the winner hosts and organizes the following edition.
This will be the third time that the Alpine country has hosted Eurovision, an event with global resonance.
In 2024, the semi-finals and the final broadcast live brought together 163 million people, according to the organizer’s figures.
A phenomenon that goes far beyond the European framework, despite its name. Votes came in from 156 countries.
Basel
“As an open city in the border triangle between Germany, France and Switzerland, we overcome borders of all kinds every day. This fits perfectly with the Eurovision Song Contest,” commented Conradin Cramer, President of the Canton of Basel-Stadt.
Basel, with around 190,000 inhabitants, is an international centre for chemistry and pharmacy.
The headquarters of several of the biggest names in both sectors are located in Switzerland’s third largest city.
PHOTO FABRICE COFFRINI, ARCHIVES AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Basel is an important cultural center.
But Basel is also an important cultural centre with several internationally renowned museums and where thousands of contemporary art enthusiasts and professionals meet every year for the Art Basel event.
On the other hand, the city rich in history does not have the reputation of being a mecca for partying or even for oversized concerts. In this area Zurich – which has just welcomed Taylor Swift – and even Bern, the federal capital, give it a run for its money.
And three
Switzerland had the honour of hosting the first edition of Eurovision in 1956 in Lugano, then in Lausanne in 1989 after the victory of Canadian singer Céline Dion, who had represented it the previous year with Don’t leave without me.
A victory that propelled the singer to the firmament of song.
Nemo won this year’s competition with his autobiographical song The Code.
PHOTO MARTIN MEISSNER, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Nemo won this year’s competition with his autobiographical song The Code.
At the same time, he became the first non-binary artist to be crowned in the competition, at the end of a 2024 edition marked above all by threats against the participant from Israel, in the midst of the war in the Gaza Strip.
Satan and Money
The Eurovision Song Contest is funded by contributions from member companies of the European Broadcasting Union, which estimates that given the economic benefits, the host city should contribute to the costs, around 35 million Swiss francs ($55.5 million).
But the city is hoping for immediate returns of around 60 million Swiss francs ($95 million), based on the experience of Liverpool as host city in 2023, particularly for the entire tourism and hospitality sector.
As is often the case, the question of cost is a matter of debate and in Switzerland citizens can demand a vote if they obtain the required number of signatures, at local, cantonal and national level.
The Federal Democratic Union (UDF), a small evangelical party that defends “timeless Christian values”, said it wanted to launch a referendum against the credits planned by Basel, on the social network X.
This party, described as ultra-conservative by the Swiss press, criticises Eurovision for being “a propaganda event” particularly for the LGBT+ community and accuses it of making “anti-Semitism acceptable, after the outcry against Israel’s presence this year, but also Satanism in reference to Bambie Thug’s performance for Ireland.
Arguments over funding for events are not uncommon in Switzerland. The country is set to host the 2025 Women’s Euro, and the federal government wanted to cut its funding, before parliament opposed it.
In Basel, even the radical right-wing SVP rallied behind the candidacy, although it had criticised the competition in other candidate cities.