Eurovision Song Contest 1997

The Point Theatre, Dublin – host venue of the 1997 contest.

Ireland hosted the contest for the fourth time in five years after winning the 1996 contest in Oslo. Dublin was chosen to be the host city, making it the sixth time that the Eurovision Song Contest was staged in the Irish capital. The venue for the contest was the Point Theatre located on the North Wall Quay of the River Liffey, amongst the Dublin Docklands. The theatre previously hosted the 1994 and 1995 contests. The Point Theatre is the only venue to have hosted the final three times.[1]

Having to host so many Eurovisions over and over again (and sometimes in succession) put great financial pressure on Radio Telefis Eireann (RTE). There were rumours going around, stating that the broadcaster was going to team up with the BBC in Northern Ireland, and even another interesting rumour spread around that the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), of Australia (which had been broadcasting the contest for fourteen years already), was going to co-host with RTE in the Sydney Opera House. Neither of these two rumours were true and were denied by RTE.

After the controversy over the 1996 pre-qualifying round, the European Broadcasting Union introduced a new system for 1997: countries with the lowest average scores over the previous four years would be excluded from the 1997 contest, and those with the lowest averages over the previous five years would be excluded from future contests (save that every country so excluded for one year would automatically be allowed to participate the following year), with so many countries being omitted as would reduce the number of participants each year to 25.[1] The running order was determined by a draw on 28 November 1996.[4]

Israel declined to participate, as the Contest was held on its Holocaust Remembrance Day, granting a reprieve to Bosnia and Herzegovina, which would otherwise have been excluded owing to its low point average over the previous four years.[1] RTÉ once again produced a highly spectacular show, with a stage that had a smaller performance space for the artists than in previous years. This was the third Eurovision set to be designed by Paula Farrell, who had previously been involved with the 1988 and 1994 contests.[1]

There was a wide array of different styles this year. Denmark brought a rap song, Croatia came with their version of the Spice Girls and Sweden brought a mid-1980s style boy band. The music was in general more modern than before, and for the first time in six years, an up-tempo song won (the last time this happened was in Rome 1991, with Carola's song, Fångad av en stormvind).[1]

This year, televoting was tested in five countries: Austria, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The results of the televoting countries were, in some cases, different from those that used a jury. Iceland received 16 of its 18 points from these five countries.[1]

Also, for the first time in Eurovision history, there was a country where not one, but two spokespeople gave votes - France. Television reporter Frédéric Ferrer and 1977 Eurovision winner Marie Myriam each took turns at giving results from that country. Long-time Irish conductor Noel Kelehan was not the host conductor this year, the duty being fulfilled by Frank McNamara.

Artist	Country	Previous Year(s)
Alma Čardžić	Bosnia and Herzegovina	1994
Maarja-Liis Ilus	Estonia	1996
Şebnem Paker	Turkey

Alma Čardžić returned for Bosnia and Herzegovina after last representing the nation in 1994.[5] Maarja-Liis Ilus and Şebnem Paker both returned for a second consecutive year representing Estonia and Turkey respectively.[6][7]

Most performances had a conductor who maestro the orchestra.

Draw	Country	Artist	Song	Language[8][9]	Place[1]	Points[1]
01	Cyprus	Hara & Andreas Konstantinou	"Mana mou" (Μάνα μου)	Greek	5	98
02	Turkey	Şebnem Paker & Grup Ethnic	"Dinle"	Turkish	3	121
03	Norway	Tor Endresen	"San Francisco"	Norwegian1	24	0
04	Austria	Bettina Soriat	"One Step"	German1	21	12
05	Ireland	Marc Roberts	"Mysterious Woman"	English	2	157
06	Slovenia	Tanja Ribič	"Zbudi se"	Slovene	10	60
07	Switzerland	Barbara Berta	"Dentro di me"	Italian	22	5
08	Netherlands	Mrs. Einstein	"Niemand heeft nog tijd"	Dutch	22	5
09	Italy	Jalisse	"Fiumi di parole"	Italian	4	114
10	Spain	Marcos Llunas	"Sin rencor"	Spanish	6	96
11	Germany	Bianca Shomburg	"Zeit"	German	18	22
12	Poland	Anna Maria Jopek	"Ale jestem"	Polish	11	54
13	Estonia	Maarja-Liis Ilus	"Keelatud maa"	Estonian	8	82
14	Bosnia and Herzegovina	Alma Čardžić	"Goodbye"	Bosnian	18	22
15	Portugal	Célia Lawson	"Antes do adeus"	Portuguese	24	0
16	Sweden	Blond	"Bara hon älskar mig"	Swedish	14	36
17	Greece	Marianna Zorba	"Horepse" (Χόρεψε)	Greek	12	39
18	Malta	Debbie Scerri	"Let Me Fly"	English	9	66
19	Hungary	V.I.P.	"Miért kell, hogy elmenj?"	Hungarian	12	39
20	Russia	Alla Pugacheva	"Primadonna" (Примадонна)	Russian	15	33
21	Denmark	Kølig Kaj	"Stemmen i mit liv"	Danish	16	25
22	France	Fanny	"Sentiments songes"	French	7	95
23	Croatia	E.N.I.	"Probudi me"	Croatian	17	24
24	United Kingdom	Katrina and the Waves	"Love Shine a Light"	English	1	227
25	Iceland	Paul Oscar	"Minn hinsti dans"	Icelandic	20	18

1.^ ^ Contained some lyrics in English.

Each country had a jury that awarded 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points for their top ten songs, or a televote, where the top ten most voted for songs were awarded the 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points. Iceland got most of its 18 points from the 5 countries that used televoting. Ireland was ostensibly the best scoring country across the televoting countries, except they were able to score points from all 5 televoting countries. The United Kingdom was only eligible to receive points from 4 of them, since they couldn't vote for themselves. In fact, the UK received 12 points from all the other televoting countries except Germany, from whom they received 10 points: in other words, the UK earned 46 of 48 (95.83%) possible televote points that year; Ireland earned 47 of 60 (78.33%) possible televote points—including their only 12 from the UK.[10]

During the voting the United Kingdom received at least five points from every voting country, the exception is Malta who only gave the United Kingdom one point.

In addition to the host country of the 1998 contest, the United Kingdom, the 18 countries with the highest average scores between 1993 and 1997 were allowed to take part in the Eurovision Song Contest 1999.

Key:
  Automatic qualifier
  Qualifier
  Replacement qualifier
  Withdrew

Rank	Country	Average	Score
			1993	1994	1995	1996	1997
1	Ireland	155.20	187	226	44	162	157
–	United Kingdom	121.40	164	63	76	77	227
2	Norway	91.60	120	76	148	114	0
3	France	80.40	121	74	94	18	95
4	Italy[lower-alpha 1]	79.50	45				114
5	Malta	75.20	69	97	76	68	66
6	Sweden	74.60	89	48	100	100	36
7	Poland	66.50		166	15	31	54
8	Cyprus	63.40	17	51	79	72	98
9	Spain	61.40	58	17	119	17	96
10	Estonia	59.33		2		94	82
11	Hungary	54.67		122	3		39
12	Croatia	54.20	31	27	91	98	24
13	Turkey	52.25	10		21	57	121
14	Greece	50.20	64	44	68	36	39
15	Switzerland	47.50	148	15		22	5
16	Portugal	46.00	60	73	5	92	0
17	Netherlands	44.75	92	4		78	5
18[lower-alpha 2]	Slovenia	42.25	9		84	16	60
19[lower-alpha 2]	Germany[lower-alpha 1]	42.25	18	128	1		22
20	Denmark	42.00	9		92		25
21	Russia	40.00		70	17		33
22	Austria	39.60	32	19	67	68	12
23	Iceland	38.20	42	49	31	51	18
24	Bosnia and Herzegovina	23.00	27	39	14	13	22

Katrina and the Waves, (with lead vocalist Katrina Leskanich) representing the United Kingdom, were the winners of the contest with the song "Love Shine a Light", written by that band's lead guitarist Kimberley Rew, and Marc Roberts from Ireland came second with "Mysterious Woman". Despite being the runner-up, it remarkably received only one 12-point score, which came from the United Kingdom. The UK spokesman Colin Berry remarked: "You're going to like this one: Ireland, twelve points!" causing Terry Wogan to reply: "Well, tit for tat!" The winning song scored an unprecedented 227 points; it received points from all participating countries, including five sets of 10 points and a record-breaking ten sets of the maximum 12 points.

"Love Shine a Light" is regarded as one of the most successful Eurovision winners,[lower-alpha 3] and was the closing song in the medleys that opened the 50th anniversary show Congratulations in Copenhagen in 2005, and the ESC 2006 semi-final in Athens. With this victory, the United Kingdom has five Eurovision wins and it is to date the country's last win in the Contest. After the 2020 contest was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Broadcasting Union aired a replacement show titled Eurovision: Europe Shine a Light, part of which featured the 41 scheduled acts performing "Love Shine a Light", alongside footage of European landmarks being lit up in tribute to the contest.

For the first time, the fansite House of Eurovision presented the Barbara Dex Award, a humorous award given to the worst dressed artist each year in the contest. It is named after the Belgian artist, Barbara Dex, who came last in the 1993 contest, in which she wore her own self designed dress. House of Eurovision would continue to provide the Barbara Dex Award until 2016, when the Belgian Eurovision fansite songfestival.be took the reins of the award.

Debbie Scerri of Malta was the inaugural Barbara Dex Award winner.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Eurovision Song Contest 1997.

• Official website
• Eurovision Song Contest 1997's channel on YouTube