The Eurovision Song Contest 2000 was the 45th in the series since the first in 1956 and the first contest of the new millennium. It was held in Stockholm, Sweden, as a result of Charlotte Nilsson's victory in 1999. It was held in Globen Arena, with Latvia making their first entry with My Star by Brainstorm. Finland, FYR Macedonia, Romania, Russia and Switzerland returned to this contest, whilst Poland, Portugal, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Lithuania and Slovenia pulled out or were relegated. The contest was won by Denmark's Olsen Brothers with Fly on the Wings of Love.
Globe Arena at the time, was the largest venue chosen to host the contest with a capacity of 16,000 seats. The postcards used to introduce each country participating involved Swedish themes that incorporated each nation in some respect. The logo for the contest, a pair of open mouth lips, was chosen by SVT and was described by its designers as "a sensual, yet stylistically pure mouth representing song, dialogue and speech", and was later one of the possible choices for the generic logo introduced at the 2004 Contest.
For the first time, an official CD of the contest was released; it contained all of the songs of the participating nations and was available throughout Europe. Such a disc was attempted in the previous year, however it didn't have four of the competing songs.
The contest was broadcast in Canada, Japan and the United States for the first time, as well as streamed on the Internet.
Official album cover
Format[]
SVT announced on July 7, 1999 that Globen would host the contest in Stockholm. This was because it would be cheaper and that Stockholm hadn't hosted since 1975, after ABBA's victory.
Design[]
The graphic design programme for this year's contest was developed by SDL (Stockholm Design Lab) and was centred around a stylised mouth symbol. It was given the Excellent Swedish Design award later that year. The softness of the mouth was contrasted with a pointy typeface, made specifically for the contest.
The intermission during the finale of the ESC was "Once Upon a Time, Europe Was Covered With Ice", a movie/song directed, composed and edited by Johan Söderberg and produced by John Nordling. For the film Söderberg had traveled all over Europe to record children performing the score. On stage were violinist Caroline Lundgren (who also opened the contest), drummer Strängnäs Trumkorps plus street musicians from Stockholm and dancers from the Bounce Street Dance Company and produced by John Nordling. [1]
Incidents[]
Israel, who opened the contest, started with a group of Israeli and Syrian flags being waved, to try and get peace between the two countries. The two male singers in the group ran up to each other and kissed for a brief moment.
The Russian delegation (Alsou) wanted the winners, the Olsen Brothers, to be disqualified, because Jorgen Olsen, one of the duo, used a vocoder to give himself an electronic voice for one verse. The EBU rejected this, and the Olsens won anyway.
In the Netherlands, their broadcaster NOS, had to stop broadcasting the Contest part-way through, because of the Enschede Fireworks Disaster earlier that day and deemed it wise to focus on that rather than a "light entertainment programme". Consequently, they sent a stand-by jury, as televoting was then unavailable.
Also, the popular catchphrase "Good Evening Europe", is introduced.
Results[]
| Draw | Country | Artist | Song | Language | Translation | Place | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 |  Israel
|
PingPong | Be Happy | Hebrew, English | -- | 22 | 7 |
| 02 |  The Netherlands
|
Linda Wagenmakers | No Goodbyes | English | 13 | 40 | |
| 03 |  United Kingdom
|
Nicki French | Don't Play That Song Again | 16 | 28 | ||
| 04 |  Estonia
|
Ines | Once in a Lifetime | 4 | 98 | ||
| 05 |  France
|
Sofia Mestari | On Aura Le Ciel | French | We'll have the sky | 23 | 5 |
| 06 |  Romania
|
Taxi | The Moon | English | -- | 17 | 25 |
| 07 |  Malta
|
Claudette Pace | Desire | English, Maltese | 8 | 73 | |
| 08 |  Norway
|
Charmed | My Heart Goes Boom | English | 11 | 57 | |
| 09 |  Russia
|
Alsou | Solo | 2 | 155 | ||
| 10 |  Belgium
|
Nathalie Sorce | Envie de vivre | French | Will to live | 24 | 2 |
| 11 |  Cyprus
|
Voice | Nomiza | Greek, Italian | I believed | 21 | 8 |
| 12 |  Iceland
|
August & Telma | Tell Me! | English | -- | 12 | 45 |
| 13 |  Spain
|
Serafin Zubiri | Colgado de un sueño | Spanish | Hanging from a Dream | 18 | 18 |
| 14 |  Denmark
|
Olsen Brothers | Fly on the Wings of Love | English | -- | 1 | 195 |
| 15 |  Germany
|
Stefan Raab | Wadde hadde dudde da? | German | What do you have there? | 5 | 96 |
| 16 |  Switzerland
|
Jane Bogaert | La vita cos'è | Italian | What is life? | 20 | 14 |
| 17 |  Croatia
|
Goran Karan | Kad zaspu anđeli | Croatian | When the angels fall asleep | 9 | 70 |
| 18 |  Sweden
|
Roger Pontare | When Spirits Are Calling My Name | English | -- | 7 | 88 |
| 19 |  North Macedonia
|
XXL | 100% te ljubam | Macedonian, English | I love you 100% | 15 | 29 |
| 20 |  Finland
|
Nina Astrom | A Little Bit | English | -- | 18 | 18 |
| 21 |  Latvia
|
Brainstorm | My Star | 3 | 136 | ||
| 22 |  Türkiye
|
Pinar Ayhan & The SOS | Yorgunum Anla | Turkish, English | Understand That I'm Weary | 10 | 59 |
| 23 |  Ireland
|
Eamonn Toal | Millennium of Love | English | -- | 6 | 92 |
| 24 |  Austria
|
The Rounder Girls | All To You | 14 | 34 |
References[]
- ↑ http://www.hammarbyartport.com/071110/cv_soderberg.pdf - Dead link.