International song competition
The Eurovision Song Contest 2014 was the 59th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, following the country's victory at the 2013 contest with the song "Only Teardrops" by Emmelie de Forest. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR), the contest was held at B&amp;W Hallerne, and consisted of two semi-finals on 6 and 8 May, and a final on 10 May 2014.
The three live shows were presented by Danish television presenter Lise Rønne, musician Nikolaj Koppel and actor Pilou Asbæk.
Thirty-seven countries participated in the contest; this included the return of Poland and Portugal after absences of two years and one year respectively. Overall, there were two fewer countries competing compared to the previous year, making thirty-seven participants, the smallest number since 2006. Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus and Serbia announced that they would not be taking part.
The winner was Austria with the song "Rise Like a Phoenix", performed by Conchita Wurst and written by Charley Mason, Joey Patulka, Ali Zuckowski, and Julian Maas. The entry won both the jury vote and televote. Austria's first victory was 48 years earlier in 1966, which at the time was the longest gap between wins. The Netherlands, Sweden, Armenia and Hungary rounded out the top five, with the Netherlands achieving their best result since its victory in 1975, Hungary achieving its best result since its fourth place in 1994, and Armenia equalling its best result from 2008. Of the "Big Five" countries, only Spain achieved a place in the top ten, while France finished in last place for the first time in its Eurovision history. Meanwhile, San Marino and Montenegro both qualified for the final for the first time.
A new record of 195 million viewers for the contest was reported. The host broadcaster DR and the EBU won the International TV Award at the Ondas Awards for their production of the event. The Danish organisers spent in total , three times more than the initially budgeted costs, and were furthermore accused of nepotism.
Location.
The contest was held at the former shipyard Refshaleøen, in the B&amp;W Hallerne in Copenhagen, with the social networking hashtag "#JoinUs" as the motto. The location had been refurbished to accommodate the event, with the surrounding area transformed into "Eurovision Island"—an Olympic Park-inspired complex housing the event venue, press centre, and other amenities.
The mayor of Copenhagen, Frank Jensen, declared in late August that the city would contribute to the budget with 40 million (Danish Kroner) (€). He also announced that the aim was to make the Eurovision 2014 into the greenest contest to date since Copenhagen had been elected European Green Capital for 2014.
Bidding phase.
Five cities had been considered as host city of the contest, including Herning and Copenhagen, both favourites to be the next host. The Parken Stadium, located in Copenhagen, which hosted the 2001 contest and Jyske Bank Boxen in Herning, which hosted the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix 2013 final, were the first venues to join the bidding phase. Later, Fredericia and Aalborg entered the phase with the Messe C and Gigantium venues, respectively. The fifth city to join the phase was Horsens, with the venue being the courtyard of the former Horsens State Prison. In the event that Horsens had been chosen to host the contest, the courtyard would have been covered by a permanent glass roof. The contest was provisionally set to take place on 13, 15 and 17 May 2014, however, the dates were later brought forward a week in order to accommodate the candidate cities.
On 17 June 2013, the municipality executive of Aalborg decided not to bid for hosting the contest due to the city's lack of sufficient hotel capacity. While DR required the host city to have at least 3,000 hotel rooms, the city of Aalborg had only 1,600 hotel rooms, more than half of which had been booked for other events taking place at the same time as the Eurovision Song Contest. On 18 June 2013, DR announced that formal bids on hosting the contest had been received by the municipalities of Copenhagen, Herning and Horsens, and that the Municipality of Fredericia had confirmed its intention to place a formal bid, too.
On 19 June 2013, the deadline for placing bids on hosting the contest, it was reported that Wonderful Copenhagen, the official convention, event and visitors bureau of the Greater Copenhagen area, had proposed three venues in its bid on hosting the contest: The Parken Stadium, a large tent on the grounds of DR Byen and the B&amp;W Hallerne. On 25 June 2013, the Municipality of Fredericia announced that the Triangle Region had withdrawn its bid on hosting the contest, due to the lack of a suitable venue. DR required the hosting venue to have no pillars blocking any views and an interior height of at least 16 metres. However, no venues in the region met those requirements and, therefore, Fredericia was no longer in the running for becoming host city of the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest. On 28 June 2013, Anders Hørsholt, CEO of Parken Sport &amp; Entertainment, stated that the Parken Stadium was no longer in the running for hosting the contest due to several football matches having already been scheduled to take place at the stadium in the weeks leading up to the contest.
On 2 September 2013, the Danish broadcaster DR announced that it had chosen Copenhagen as the host city for the 2014 contest, with B&amp;W Hallerne chosen as the host venue.
Key
 ;templatestyles src="Legend/styles.css" / ; †  Host venue
Other sites.
The Eurovision Village was the official Eurovision Song Contest fan and sponsors' area during the events week. There it was possible to watch performances by local artists, as well as the live shows broadcast from the main venue. Located at the Nytorv Square, it was open from 4 to 11 May 2014.
The EuroClub was the venue for the official after-parties and private performances by contest participants. Unlike the Eurovision Village, access to the EuroClub was restricted to accredited fans, delegates, and press. It was located at VEGA CPH Music Club.
The "Red Carpet" event, where the contestants and their delegations are presented before the accredited press and fans, took place at Copenhagen City Hall on 4 May 2014 at 17:00 CET, followed by the Opening Ceremony.
Participating countries.
Eligibility for potential participation in the Eurovision Song Contest requires a national broadcaster with active EBU membership capable of receiving the contest via the Eurovision network and broadcasting it live nationwide. The EBU issued an invitation to participate in the contest to all active members.
Thirty-seven countries participated in the 2014 contest. Poland and Portugal both returned to the contest, having last participated in 2011 and 2012 respectively. However, Bulgarian broadcaster Bulgarian National Television (BNT), Croatian broadcaster Hrvatska radiotelevizija (HRT), Cypriot broadcaster Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (CyBC) and Serbian broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) did not participate in the 2014 contest.
Returning artists.
Valentina Monetta represented San Marino for a third and final consecutive year, having previously represented the microstate at the 2012 and 2013 contests. This makes Monetta the fourth main singer to compete in three consecutive contests (and the only one of amongst them never to win in one of these occasions), following Lys Assia and Corry Brokken, who both competed in the 1956, 1957 and 1958 contests, and Udo Jürgens, who competed in 1964, 1965 and 1966.
Paula Seling and Ovi returned as a duo, having previously represented Romania in 2010.
The Tolmachevy Sisters, who represented Russia, previously participated in and won the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2006.
Macedonian backing vocalist Tamara Todevska previously represented Macedonia in 2008. She would later represent Macedonia again in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019.
Martina Majerle, who represented Slovenia in 2009 and provided backing vocals numerous times for Croatia (2003), Montenegro (2008) and Slovenia (2007, 2011, 2012), returned as a backing vocalist for Montenegro.
Other countries.
Active EBU members.
Bosnian broadcaster BHRT initially stated their intention to participate in the contest; however, in late 2013 it was announced that they would not be taking part due to a lack of sponsorship. Similarly, Bulgarian broadcaster BNT initially planned to participate but later announced otherwise due to limited funds.
Active EBU member broadcasters in Andorra, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Monaco, Morocco, Serbia, Slovakia and Turkey confirmed non-participation prior to the announcement of the participants list by the EBU, some of them citing reasons such as poor results in previous editions, dissatisfaction with the mixed jury/televote voting system, the European financial crisis and the 2012–13 Cypriot financial crisis.
Non-EBU members.
While Kosovan broadcaster RTK did not voice any intention regarding the 2014 contest, Kosovo's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Petrit Selimi told the Swedish television programme "Korrespondenterna" that he thought Kosovo would be granted EBU membership and acceptance into the Eurovision in time for the 2014 edition; however, the country failed to meet the requirement of being recognized as an independent country by the International Telecommunication Union, and was not granted membership in the EBU. Liechtensteiner broadcaster 1 FL TV had originally intended to join the EBU in time to participate in the 2013 contest, but the government never granted the required financial subsidies and the broadcaster put off the aim to make their debut to 2014; however, the government again failed to provide any funds and 1 FL TV was unable to join the contest.
Format.
The competition consisted of two semi-finals and a final, a format which has been in use since 2008. The ten countries with the highest scores in each semi-final qualified to the final where they joined the host nation Denmark and the five main sponsoring nations (known as the Big Five): France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.
Each participating country had their own national jury, which consisted of five professional members of the music industry.
Each member of a respective nation's jury was required to rank every song, except that of their own country. The voting results from each member of a particular nation's jury were combined to produce an overall ranking from first to last place. Likewise, the televoting results were also interpreted as a full ranking, taking into account the full televoting result rather than just the top ten. The combination of the jury's full ranking and the televote's full ranking produced an overall ranking of all competing entries. The song which scored the highest overall rank received 12 points, while the tenth-best ranked song received 1-point. In the event of a televoting (insufficient number of votes/technical issues) or jury failure (technical issue/breach of rules), only a jury/televoting was used by each country.
On 20 September 2013, the EBU released the official rules for the 2014 contest, which introduced rule changes regarding the jury voting. The rules aimed at providing more transparency regarding each five member national jury by releasing the names of all jurors on 1 May 2014 prior to the start of the contest and providing each juror's full ranking results after the conclusion of the contest. In addition, jury members on a particular nation's jury can only serve as a juror if they have not already participated as such in one of the preceding two contest editions.
The contest was held in the immediate aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and subsequent annexation of Crimea by Russia. Votes cast through Ukrainian telecom providers which service Crimea were counted towards Ukraine's votes.
Semi-final allocation draw.
The draw that determined the semi-final allocation was held on 20 January 2014 at the Copenhagen City Hall. Prior to the allocation draw, on 24 November 2013 it was announced that Norway and Sweden would perform in different semi-finals in order to maximise the availability of tickets for visitors from both countries. A draw at the EBU headquarters determined that Sweden would perform in the first semi-final, while Norway would perform in the second semi-final. The EBU also allocated Israel to the second semi-final after a request from the delegation in order to avoid complications with its Independence Day coinciding with the date of the first semi-final. The remaining participating countries, excluding the automatic finalists (Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom), were split into six pots, based on voting patterns from the previous ten years.
The pots were calculated by the televoting partner Digame and were as follows:
Running order.
As in 2013, the host broadcaster DR and their producers determined the running order for each show with