Eurovision Song Contest 1997
The Eurovision Song Contest 1997 was the 42nd edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Dublin, Ireland, following the country's victory at the with the song "The Voice" by Eimear Quinn. It was the fourth time in five years that Ireland had hosted the contest and a record sixth time that it was staged in Dublin. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), the contest was yet again held at the Point Theatre (the venue for the and ), Saturday 3 May 1997. The contest was  presented by Irish actress Carrie Crowley and Boyzone front-singer Ronan Keating who also sang in the interval act with Boyzone. Twenty-five countries participated in the contest, equalling the record of the 1993 and 1994 editions. returned after their three-year absence. , , , and , returned after their last participation in 1995, despite all of them taking part in the non-televised 1996 pre-qualifying round in which they failed to qualify and therefore were absent. , , and were relegated due to having the lowest average scores over the previous four editions. The winner was the United Kingdom with the song "Love  Shine a Light", performed by Katrina and the Waves and written by band member Kimberley Rew. Ireland, Turkey, Italy and Cyprus rounded out the top five. Turkey's third place finish was their best result in the contest at this point, finishing in the top five for the very first time. Location. Having to host so many contests (sometimes in succession) put great financial pressure on host broadcaster RTÉ. There were early rumours stating that the Irish broadcaster was to team up with the BBC in Northern Ireland (BBC had previously offered to do this for the 1995 contest), however  RTÉ eventually decided to host the event alone. Ireland hosted the contest for the fourth time in five years after winning the contest in Oslo. Dublin was again 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 and contests. The Point Theatre remains the only venue to have hosted the contest three times. Format. 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. The running order was determined by a draw on 28 November 1996. 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. 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. 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). 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. Also, for the first  time in Eurovision history, there was a country where not one, but two spokespeople gave votesFrance. Television reporter Frédéric Ferrer and 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 due to illness, the duty being fulfilled by Frank McNamara. Winners. 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, 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 "", 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. Postcard greetings. Some of the postcards were preceded by greetings from  past Eurovision stars. These stars were (in order of appearance): Participating countries. Qualification. The audio-only qualification round used in had been poorly received among the competing countries, and so a new relegation system was introduced by the EBU for the 1997 contest. 25 participation places were on offer, to be filled by the host country Ireland and the 24 countries which had received the highest average total of points received over the past four contests (1993 to 1996). , , , , and , as the countries with the lowest average scores, were therefore excluded from participating in 1997; however, following 's withdrawal due  to the date of the final clashing with its Holocaust Remembrance Day, Bosnia and Herzegovina was subsequently reinstated to fill the final place. Key: Conductors. Most performances had a conductor who directed the orchestra; four countries used a backing track instead of the orchestra. This was also the first year where full playback was allowed in the contest. Scoreboard. 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 (Sweden awarded 8 points, United Kingdom awarded 6 points, Austria awarded 2 points, Germany and Switzerland failed to award Iceland any points). 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. Bosnia and Herzegovina also received points from four countries, who used the televoting, with only United Kingdom failing to give any points. During the voting the United Kingdom received at least five points from every voting country, bar Malta who only gave the United Kingdom one point. 12 points. Below is a summary of all 12-point in the final: Spokespersons. The  spokespersons announced the score from their respective country's national jury (or, in some cases, televote) in running order. Broadcasts. Most countries sent commentators to Dublin or commented from their own country, in order to add insight to the participants and, if necessary, the provision of voting information. Other awards. Barbara Dex Award. For the first time, the Barbara Dex Award was organised as a humorous fan award given to the worst dressed artist each year. Named after Belgium's representative who came last in the 1993 contest, wearing her self-designed dress, the award was presented by the fansite  House of Eurovision until the 2016 contest, when the Belgian Eurovision fansite songfestival.be took the reins. Debbie Scerri of Malta is the inaugural winner of the award.