Eurovision Song Contest 1986

Oslo

Stavanger

Sandnes

Trondheim

Bergen

Locations of the candidate cities. The chosen host city is marked in blue.

Grieghallen, Bergen - host venue of the 1986 contest.

By 1985, Norway had received the unwanted distinction of being "the nul points country," receiving 0 points three times and coming in last six times. When they did win the 1985 Contest, it was a source of pride among Norwegian population, and the national broadcaster, NRK, took full advantage of being able to showcase Norway and its achievements in front of over 500 million television viewers. By the autumn of 1985, NRK had decided to hold the next year's contest at the Grieghallen in Bergen, turning down other bids from capital Oslo, and main cities of Stavanger, Sandnes and Trondheim.

As this was the first time Norway hosted a Eurovision Song Contest, NRK commissioned a lavish budget for the event, turning Grieghallen into a Viking-esque "ice palace" for the live show, complete with white and pastel neon lights for the stage. In addition, NRK also had a special diamond-encrusted dress made for presenter Åse Kleveland for her opening number. The prized dress, which weighed upwards of 15 pounds (6.8 kg), is still available for viewing at NRK's costuming department at Marienlyst in Oslo.

Kleveland sang the multilingual "Welcome to Music" as the opening act, incorporating English and French primarily, in addition to other European languages. BBC commentator Terry Wogan, at the close of Kleveland's number, dryly remarked, "Katie Boyle (a former Eurovision host for the UK) never sang, did she?"

During her opening speech, Kleveland said of Norway's road in the contest, "For those of you who have followed Norway's course through the history of the Eurovision Song Contest, you will know that it has been quite thorny, in fact. So, imagine our joy when last year we finally won, and the pleasure we feel today, being able to welcome 700 million viewers to the top of Europe, to Norway, and to Bergen."

One of the interval acts presented featured Norwegian musicians Sissel Kyrkjebø and Steinar Ofsdal, accompanied by Norwegian national broadcasting orchestra, Kringkastingsorkesteret (KORK). They opened with the traditional song of the city of Bergen, Udsikter fra Ulriken (also known as "Nystemte'n"), and presented a number of familiar tunes while showing the sights and sounds of Bergen area. Ofsdal played a range of traditional Norwegian folk instruments such as accordion, recorder and hardingfele.[1] The presentation launched Kyrkjebø into a career as an internationally recognized artist.

Iceland competed for the first time, as the national broadcaster RÚV had finally cemented their satellite television connections with the rest of Europe.[2]

Greece withdrew, having been drawn eighteenth in the running order, as the contest coincided with Holy Saturday. Their entry would have been "Wagon-lit" (βάγκον λι), performed by Polina, who was backing vocalist of Elpida at the 1979 Contest.[3][4] Italian broadcaster RAI decided not to send any delegation to Bergen.

The winning song, Belgium's "J'aime la vie," received points from every jury (Belgium received five sets of 12 points; every country awarded Belgium at least five points except for Germany, which gave them just one point). Belgium was the winner in the voting from the results of the second jury out of twenty, in the longest winning stretch during voting since 1974. Switzerland was behind Belgium in nearly every part of the voting, but Belgium had a commanding lead from the very beginning. Traditionally some juries give high points to the host country's entrant, but this did not happen this year; no jury gave Norway's song "Romeo" more than six points out of a possible 12.

Belgium scored an absolute record at the time, with Sandra Kim earning a never seen before number of 176 points (that record remained until 1993, with Ireland scoring 187 points), an average of 9.26 points per voting nation. Kim received 77.2% of the maximum possible score, which, as of 2019, still ranks 8th among all Eurovision winners.

•  Luxembourg - Frédérique Ries
•  Yugoslavia - Enver Petrovci[23]
•  France - Patricia Lesieur
•  Norway - Nina Matheson[24]
•  United Kingdom - Colin Berry
•  Iceland - Guðrún Skúladóttir[25]
•  Netherlands – Joop van Zijl
•  Turkey - Ümit Tunçağ
•  Spain - Matilde Jarrín
•   Switzerland - Michel Stocker[26]
•  Israel - Yitzhak Shim'oni[27]
•  Ireland - John Skehan
•  Belgium - Jacques Olivier
•  Germany - Christoph Deumling
•  Cyprus - Anna Partelidou[17]
•  Austria - Tilia Herold
•  Sweden - Agneta Bolme-Börjefors[19]
•  Denmark - Bent Henius
•  Finland - Solveig Herlin[28]
•  Portugal - Margarida Mercês de Melo

•  United Kingdom - David Elder (Scotland), Gary Speirs (Wales), Sue Lloyd (London) , Mr T Smith (South), Mr A Brown (Midlands), Miss M Chapman (Anglia) , Mrs M Heathcote (North West), Mr P Jenkinson (South East), Mrs T O'Shea (Midlands), Quentin Smith (South West)
•  Iceland - Berglind Orradóttir, Davíð Scheving Thorsteinsson, Elsa Björnsdóttir, Guðjón Vigfússon, Guðlaug Þorsteinsdóttir, Karl Þorsteins, Margrét Stefánsdóttir, Ríkharður Ríkharðsson, Salóme Þorkelsdóttir, Sigurdór Sigurdórsson, Svanhildur Kristjónsdóttir[25]
•  Turkey - Ayça Eren, Ziya Anadol, Kaan Bozoğlu, Ayşegül Soyalp, Özlem Budakoğlu, Fatma Dikmen, Alaaddin Torun, İlhan Aslanboğan, Zahide Azılı, Saadet Aktemel, Suhal Eriş[29]
•  Spain – José María Tío (industrialist), Carolina Conejero (student), Rosario Cabanas (horsewoman), Rafael Camino (bullfighter), Marta Cantón (gymnast), Emilio Aragón (comedian), María Cuadra (actress), Javier Escrivá (actor), Blanca Fernández Ochoa (skier), Antonio Imízcoz (journalist), Pablo Pérez (hairdresser)[30]
•  Ireland - Martin Jones

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