Eurovision Song Festival 15

Semi-finals dates
 Semi-final 2 date
 Final date
 Venue
 Presenter(s)
 Conductor
 Director
 Executive supervisor
 Host broadcaster
 Number of entries
 Debuting countries
 Returning countries
 Withdrawing countries
 Voting system
 Null points
 Winning song

The Eurovision Song Festival 15 will be the 15th edition of the Eurovision Song Festival. The contest was held in the Baku Crystal Hall in Baku, Azerbaijan following the victory of AISEL with the song "Sevgi qefesi" in the Eurovision Song Festival 14. It was the first time that Azerbaijan hosted the Eurovision Song Festival, as AISEL was the country's first ever winner. The contest was organised by the European Broadcasting Organisation (EBO) in cooperation with host broadcaster İctimai Television (İTV) and the contest consisted of two semi-finals on 20 and 22 July, and the final on 24 July. The live shows were hosted by Leyla Aliyeva, Eldar Gasimov and Samra.

A total of 46 countries participated in the contest. The lineup for the contest remained the same compared to last year. Despite this, there was controversy surrounding the participation of Belarus, however the EBO confirmed it had constructive talks with BTRC, the Belarusian broadcaster, about the media situation in the country, enabling Belarus to participate. Multiple Armenian parliamentarians called for Armenia to withdraw from this edition due to the increased political and military tensions between the country and Azerbaijan. The Armenian broadcaster, AMPTV, stated that they did not want political tensions to get in the way of public entertainment. Eventually, it was decided that the Armenian candidate would participate from an Armenian studio, so the Armenian delegation did not have to travel to Baku.

It was also the first edition without Pierre Aubret as the executive supervisor. He announced that after 14 editions of supervising the contest, there were no challenges anymore. He was replaced by Dutch Joop van Oosterhout, who directly initiated all kinds of new changes. He announced that original logos would now be created for the contest, besides that recaps and voting sequences would now be published on YouTube. He furthermore introduced a fairer system for allocating countries in semi-finals.

## Location

The Eurovision Song Festival 15 was held in the Baku Crystal Hall, Azerbaijan, following the country's victory at the 14th edition of the contest with the song "Sevgi qefesi", performed by AISEL. It was the first time Azerbaijan hosted the Eurovision Song Festival, while the country did host the Eurovision Dance Festival 2 already in the same venue.

### Selection of the host city

Just after the victory of AISEL at the 14th edition of the contest, İTV launched a bidding competition for cities to apply if they wished to host the Eurovision Song Festival. Eventually, only Baku submitted a successful bid to host the contest and the city presented three different venues. On the 31st of May, it was announced that Baku would host the contest.
  †   Host venue
  ‡   Shortlisted

## Format

### Visual design

On 31 May, the logo of the Eurovision Song Festival 15 was unveiled, together with the slogan of this edition: "Follow your flame". The logo represented a flame above a highway, symbolising that you can always find your soul despite having to go a long road to reach it, with the flames symbolising the human soul. The flame was especially symbolising Azerbaijan's status as the 'land of fire'.

### Presenters

The presenters of the show were Leyla Aliyeva, Eldar Gasimov and Samra. Leyla Aliyeva and Eldar Gasimov hosted the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 in Baku, Azerbaijan and thereby had experience of hosting such a massive show. Samra took part twice for Azerbaijan, in the ninth and twelfth edition of the contest, both times failing to qualify for the final.

### Semi-final allocation draw

For the first time in the history of the Eurovision Song Festival, a semi-final allocation draw was used to divide the participating countries in multiple pots, in order to guarantee a fair voting process. Besides the fact that semi-finalists were now allocated in different pots, the members of the big 6 were divided between the two semi-finals as well, as from this edition on members of the big 6 vote along the semi-finalists. This measure was put into place to increase interest in the semi-finals from tv-viewers from the big 6 countries. Finland, Georgia and Russia were allocated to vote in the first semi-final, while host nation Azerbaijan, San Marino and the United Kingdom were allocated to vote in the second semi-final.

### Postcards

The postcards form short introduction videos to each of the individual participants, while also showcasing beautiful spots of the host nation. Each postcard is approximately 30 seconds long. The postcards for the 15th edition of the Eurovision Song Festival were filmed between December and May, in order to show the different seasons within Azerbaijani nature and society. The postcards featured mostly aerial shots of interesting tourist hotspots of the country. The artists performed a small dance routine on the location of their postcard. The following locations were used for each participating country:

### Opening and interval acts

The first semi-final was opened by Latifa Soyuoz with her song "Falan filan", which achieved a third place finish in the first edition of the Eurovision Song Festival. Her song remains popular among Eurovision fans and the Azerbaijani public. The second semi-final was opened by Rilaya and her song "Saf", remixed by Sahil Umud to turn the song into more of a party anthem. Rilaya took part for Azerbaijan in the second contest and finished third, just like Latifa Soyuoz. Sahil Umud took part for Azerbaijan in the fourth and seventh edition.

The interval act of the first semi-final was performed by a total of twenty Azerbaijani gymnasts who performed a routine on old Eurovision Song Festival entries. The interval of the second semi-final was performed by six previous winners of the contest, namely Mollie King, Rita Ora, Natalia Nykiel, LOBODA, Christopher en Antonia. They performed their winning Eurovision entries mixed with Azerbaijani traditional instruments. For the interva act of the final, a common song was produced by Sahil Umud and Hafex to bring the participants together. The song was named after the slogan of this year: "Follow your flame".

## Participating countries

On 31 May 2021, the EBO announced that a total of 46 countries would take part in the contest, which showed that the contest would have the same lineup as the previous edition. Despite initial rumours that Austria would take the place of Belarus, Austria did not show up on the final participants list while Belarus did.

### Semi-final 1

The first semi-final took place on 20 July 2021 at 21:00 (CEST). A total of twenty countries participated in the first semi-final. Those countries plus Finland, Georgia and Russia voted in this semi-final. The highlighted countries qualified for the final.

### Semi-final 2

The second semi-final took place on 22 July 2021 at 21:00 (CEST). A total of twenty countries participated in the second semi-final. Those countries plus Azerbaijan, San Marino and the United Kingdom voted in this semi-final. The highlighted countries qualified for the final.

### Final

The final took place on 24 July at 21:00 (CEST). Twenty-six countries participated in the final, with all forty-six participating countries eligible to vote.

## Other countries

Eligibility for potential participating in the Eurovision Song Festival requires a national broadcaster with active EBO membership that would be able to broadcast the contest via the Eurovision network. The EBO issued an invitation to participate in the contest to all active members.

* Austria - Despite ORF initially confirming that Austria would take the place of Belarus, however after intense dialogue between BTRC and the EBO, Belarus appeared on the final participation list.
* Luxembourg - RTL, the broadcaster that would be responsible for the participation of Luxembourg, confirmed that it regards the Eurovision Song Festival as an important cultural event and confirmed it would broadcast this edition live.
* Morocco - Again, rumours suggested that Morocco would debut this edition, however the head of broadcaster 2M denied that it would take part in this edition. 2M did state that they would continue to work hard for a Moroccan debut in the Eurovision Song Festival.

## Other awards

### Best male vocals

In this category, music professionals could vote for the entry which featured the strongest male vocals.

 2
 3

### Best female vocals

In this category, music professionals could vote for the entry which featured the strongest female vocals.

 2
 3

### Best composition

In this category, music professionals could vote for the entry which was both lyrically and musically the best composed.

 2
 3

### Biggest surprise

In this category, music specialists could vote for the entry with the most (positively) surprising result.

 2
 3

## Viewing figures

The EBO announced that a record of 93 million viewers across Europe watched the show live. Besides all the participating countries, the show was also broadcast in Kosovo and Luxembourg. Below are the viewing figures listed for the final: