This week the world’s eyes will be on Basel, Switzerland where performers from all over Europe plus Australia are gathering for the 69th Eurovision Song Contest, screening here live and in prime time from 14-18 May exclusively on SBS and SBS On Demand.
Basel can look back on more than 2000 years of history – there has been a settlement there since Celtic times. Its geographic location between Vosges, the Black Forest and the Jura Mountains gives the city an exceptional amount of sunshine and one of the warmest climates in Switzerland.
But with the world’s biggest song contest in town, the historic city’s population – usually about 190,000 – is expected to swell as thousands of people from all over the world arrive to watch the 36 contestants, including Australia’s own Go-Jo (Marty Zambotto), compete for the coveted glass trophy.
There is no permanent home for the contest which is hosted by the country that wins the year before with the host city chosen from a group of bidding cities – competition is fierce with international exposure on the line and so when Switzerland’s Nemo won in Mamo, Sweden in May 2025 Basel, Bern, Geneva, and Zurich all officially declared their interest.
Eurovision fans wait with bated breath to see where it will be and are quick to book tickets and accommodation when the host city is announced. And while last year 2.2 million Australians watched Eurovision on television in 2024 – there were hundreds maybe thousands more on the ground soaking up the atmosphere.
Going to Eurovision is a holy grail for many – something that long-time Sydney-based fan Henry Yau and his wife Lauren Davis finally achieved two years ago when Liverpool hosted for war-torn Ukraine. It was a long-held ambition for Henry, who had been a fan since 2004, originally planning to go to Rotterdam in 2020.
“Having been a fan for as long as I have, I suppose it had always been on the bucket list. And so, when we were planning the wedding and the honeymoon to follow – and given that my wife Lauren is also a fan, thanks to my influence – it sort of became an opportunity to actually go there and do something,” he said.
“We needed something as extravagant and celebratory as a honeymoon to kind of justify the not-insignificant expense of the international travel, as well as the tickets to the event itself. And of course, for the past few years Eurovision has been hosted in countries that tend to not be particularly affordable to travel to, and then you add Eurovision on top of that….
“But my wife and I got married in March of 2020. So, we were originally planning on going to the Rotterdam contest – with the idea of spending a week in the Netherlands, a week in Germany and a week in the UK – and that fell through. We weren’t really feeling comfortable with the international travel for a few years after that, which meant that we ended up going to Liverpool 2023 instead.”
Of course, Eurovision wasn’t the only reason for Henry and Lauren choosing the UK for their honeymoon.
“It certainly wasn’t the only drawcard, because both my wife and I are big Anglophiles,” he explained.
“There were plenty of things going on in the UK that we were very keen on –pop culture stuff, just lots of little nerdy things that we’re interested in.
“The UK was always going to be on the cards for our honeymoon, even before we knew they were hosting, because there was so much stuff that we were interested in that we wanted to check out. So, we spent time in Manchester, in Liverpool, in Cardiff, in some more village-y parts of the south of England, and in London.
“I’m not sure if we would have visited Liverpool necessarily if Eurovision had been hosted in some other part of the country, but that said, the time that we spent there, it seemed like a really lovely place. Like we’re not Beatles fans particularly, but just the fact that we’re big Doctor Who fans, and there have been some scenes and episodes shot in Liverpool, meant that we were able to knock that out – two big things in the one city.”
Liverpool’s event was a special moment for Eurovision – a real coming together with UK hosting geographically but culturally the event was about Ukraine.
“There were all these really lovely Ukrainian cultural touches dotted throughout the city, with Eurovillage at Liverpool Pier Head being the kind of centrepiece for that,” he said.
He said the circumstances made the event “really something special.”
And was being emersed in the Eurovision culture what he expected?
“There’s a big difference between watching it at home, and maybe talking about it with some mates or colleagues afterwards, and seeing how an entire community can get behind this event,” Henry said.
“I think the sheer scale of that – even though you sit at home and you’re aware that there are people that are really passionate about it, and there’s a huge community, and there are lots of fans, and it brings a lot of people together – you’re not really prepared for the scale of how it impacts things.”
