Your guide to Eurovision 2025

Get out the glitter balls, sew on the sequins and prepare to party: The Eurovision Song Contest approaches.

The 69th annual musical extravaganza takes place in Basel, Switzerland in May. It will see acts from 37 countries vie for the continent's musical crown in a contest that has been likened to a pop Olympics, complete with triumph, tears and geopolitical rivalries.

Here's a guide to the wonderful world of Eurovision. 

Eurovision is an international pop music competition, in which acts from countries across Europe — and a few beyond —compete in a live televised singing contest. Each singer or group performs a three-minute song, with the winner decided by votes from national juries and viewers around the world.

Launched in 1956 to test new live-broadcasting technology and foster unity after the Second World War, Eurovision has become a campy yet heartfelt celebration of diversity, national pride and the joyous power of pop.

It has grown from seven countries to almost 40, including non-European nations such as Israel and Australia. Organizers say last year's competition was watched by 163 million people around the world.

Eurovision has become synonymous with elaborate costumes, spectacular staging and songs that range from anthemic to extremely silly. Past winners include songs with titles like La, La, La and Boom Bang-a-Bang, as well as soaring power ballads and slick disco dancefloor-fillers.

Past champions range from Sweden's Abba — with Waterloo in 1974 — to Finnish metalheads Lordi in 2006, Austrian drag performer Conchita Wurst in 2014, Italian rock band Måneskin in 2021 and Ukrainian folk-rap group Kalush Orchestra in 2022.

Traditionally, the competition is hosted by the previous year's winner, and the 2024 victor was non-binary Swiss singer Nemo with their operatic anthem The Code. The 2025 contest will be held at the St. Jakobshalle arena in Basel, a largely German-speaking city bordering France and Germany.

Two semifinals, on May 13 and 15, will be followed by a grand Saturday night final on May 17, hosted by Swiss broadcasters Hazel Brugger, Michelle Hunziker and Sandra Studer.

Switzerland is the birthplace of Eurovision — it staged the first-ever contest, and the European Broadcasting Union, which runs the show, is based in Geneva. It has won twice before: in 1956 and in 1988, when Canadian chanteuse Céline Dion competed under the Swiss flag.

Eurovision's motto is "united by music," an admirable goal that's not always achieved.

Contest rules ban overtly political lyrics or symbols, but regional rivalries are rife and global tensions often intrude. Russia has been banned since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine won Eurovision that year, but could not host in 2023 because of the ongoing war, so the English city of Liverpool stood in.

Last year's event in the Swedish city of Malmö attracted large pro-Palestinian protests that called for Israel to be dropped from the contest over the country's conduct during its war against Hamas.