International song competition
The Eurovision Song Contest 1984 was the 29th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, held on 5 May 1984 in the in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster (RTL), the contest was held in Luxembourg following the country's victory at the 1983 contest with the song "" by Corinne Hermès. The event was presented by Désirée Nosbusch, who, at 19 years old, remains the youngest person to have hosted the contest as of 2024[ [update]].
Nineteen countries participated in the contest, with Ireland returning after a one-year absence, and Greece and Israel, which had participated in the previous year's event, declining to enter. The winner was Sweden with the song "Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley", composed by Torgny Söderberg, written by Britt Lindeborg and performed by the group Herreys. This was Sweden's second contest victory, coming ten years after ABBA's win in the 1974 contest. Ireland finished as runner-up, Spain and Denmark placed third and fourth, respectively, and Belgium and Italy tied for fifth place.
Location.
The 1984 contest took place in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg, following the country's victory at the 1983 contest with the song "" performed by Corinne Hermès. It was the fourth time that Luxembourg had hosted the event, following the contests held in 1962, 1966 and 1973. The chosen venue was the , also known as the or , an arts venue inaugurated in 1964, and which had previously hosted the contest in 1973. Luxembourgish broadcaster (RTL) initially had difficulty in finding a suitable venue to host the contest and eventually settled on the , which was smaller compared to the venue used at the 1983 contest. The theatre's main auditorium usually holds an audience around 950 people, however this was reduced with the addition of technical equipment and commentator's boxes. As a result, only press, members of each country's delegation and diplomatic representatives were allowed to watch the live show at the venue.
Participating countries.
Entries from a total of 19 countries participated in the event. Ireland returned to the contest after a one-year absence, however Israel and Greece decided not to participate. Israel declined to enter as the date of the contest coincided with , while Greece, which had originally planned to participate in the contest, reportedly withdrew its planned participation as the quality of the songs submitted to the Greek broadcaster for consideration was deemed to be of too low a quality.
A number of the participating artists in this year's event had previously competed in past editions of the contest. Germany's Mary Roos had finished third in 1972 and made a second appearance for the country in 1984; Izolda Barudžija, who had been a member of the group Aska that represented Yugoslavia in 1982, participated again this year alongside Vlado Kalember; Kit Rolfe, lead singer of the United Kingdom's Belle and the Devotions, had previously performed in the 1983 contest as a backing vocalist for the British entry Sweet Dreams and Gary Lux, who had represented Austria in 1983 as a member of the group Westend, returned as a backing vocalist for the Austrian singer Anita.
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Production and format.
The Eurovision Song Contest 1984 was produced by the Luxembourgish public broadcaster (RTL). Ray van Cant served as executive producer, Hubert Terheggen served as producer, René Steichen served as director, Roland de Groot served as designer, and Pierre Cao served as musical director, leading the orchestra. A separate musical director could be nominated by each country to lead the orchestra during their performance, with the host musical director also available to conduct for those countries which did not nominate their own conductor. On behalf of the contest organisers, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the event was overseen by Frank Naef as scrutineer. The overall costs to organise the event were around 35 million Luxembourgish francs.
Each participating broadcaster submitted one song, which was required to be no longer than three minutes in duration and performed in the language, or one of the languages, of the country which it represented. A maximum of six performers were allowed on stage during each country's performance. Each entry could utilise all or part of the live orchestra and could use instrumental-only backing tracks, however any backing tracks used could only include the sound of instruments featured on stage being mimed by the performers.
The results of the 1984 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. The points awarded by each country were determined by an assembled jury of 11 individuals, who were all required to be members of the public with no connection to the music industry, with a recommendation that there should be a balance between the sexes and that half should be under 25 years old. Each jury member voted in secret and awarded between one and five 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.
Rehearsals for the participating artists began on 30 April 1984. Two technical rehearsals were conducted for each participating delegation in the week approaching the contest, with countries rehearsing in the order in which they would perform. The first rehearsals of 40 minutes were held on 30 April and 1 May 1984, followed by a press conference for each delegation and the accredited press. Each country's second rehearsals were held on 2 and 3 May and lasted 20 minutes total. Three dress rehearsals were held with all artists, two held in the afternoon and evening of 4 May and one final rehearsal in the afternoon of 5 May, with an invited audience present for the second dress rehearsal.
Dutch designer Roland de Groot was in charge of the set design of the contest for the fourth time, having previously done so 1970, 1976 and 1980, the three previous contests staged in the Netherlands. For the 1984 contest, de Groot's design centred around various shapes which were suspended over the performance area on a series of pulleys and which could be moved around the stage in between the competing acts; this allowed for different backdrops to be created for each entry. Each entry was preceded by a video postcard which served as an introduction to that country, as well as creating a transition between entries to allow stage crew to make changes on stage. The postcards for the 1984 contest featured a troupe of actors referred to during the contest as "the Tourists", and focused on the various cultural stereotypes of each of the competing countries and portrayed these a humorous context, often with heavy use of computer animation.
Contest overview.
The contest was held on 5 May 1984, beginning at 21:00 (CEST) and lasting 2 hours and 12 minutes. The event was presented by the Luxembourgish television presenter and actress Désirée Nosbusch, who compèred the contest in French, German, Luxembourgish and English; at 19 years old, Nosbusch remains the youngest individual to have hosted the Eurovision Song Contest as of 2024[ [update]]. Among the invited guests present in the audience was Prince Henri, then heir to the Luxembourger throne. The contest's interval act featured a performance by the Prague Theatre of Illuminated Drawings. The medallions awarded to the winners were presented by the previous year's winning artist Corinne Hermès.
The 1984 contest featured one of the first instances of booing to be heard at the Eurovision Song Contest, which occurred immediately after the UK's entry. Various reasons for the booing have been proposed: these include being a response to football hooliganism which occurred in Luxembourg by English football fans during the qualifying stage of the 1984 European Championship, the use of off-stage backing vocalists during the UK's performance which gave an impression that members of Belle and the Devotions were lip syncing, and allegations that their song, "Love Games", which was heavily inspired by 1960s Motown tracks, had plagiarised previous tracks by the Supremes.
The winner was Sweden represented by the song "Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley", composed by Torgny Söderberg, written by Britt Lindeborg and performed by Herreys, comprising brothers Per, Richard and Louis Herrey. It was Sweden's second contest win, ten years after ABBA's victory in 1974. It was also the third – and, as of 2024[ [update]], last – time that the winning entry was the first to be performed, following the 1975 and 1976 contests. During the traditional winner's reprise performance, the group sung part of the winning song in English, with lyrics written by Per Herrey.
Spokespersons.
Each country nominated a spokesperson, connected to the contest venue via telephone lines and responsible for announcing, in English or French, the votes for their respective country. Known spokespersons at the 1984 contest are listed below.
Detailed voting results.
Jury voting was used to determine the points awarded by all countries. The announcement of the results from each country was conducted in the order in which they performed, with the spokespersons announcing their country's points in English or French in ascending order. The detailed breakdown of the points awarded by each country is listed in the tables below.
12 points.
The below table summarises how the maximum 12 points were awarded from one country to another. The winning country is shown in bold. Sweden received the maximum score of 12 points from five of the voting countries, with Ireland receiving four sets of 12 points, Belgium, Denmark, Italy and Sweden each receiving two sets of 12 points, and Cyprus and France receiving one maximum score each.
Broadcasts.
Each participating broadcaster was required to relay the contest via its networks. Non-participating member broadcasters were also able to relay the contest as "passive participants". Broadcasters were able to send commentators to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language and to relay information about the artists and songs to their viewers. These commentators were typically sent to the venue to report on the event, and were able to provide commentary from small booths constructed at the back of the venue. The contest was reportedly broadcast in 30 countries, with an estimated audience of 500 million viewers. Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below.
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Notes and references.
References.
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