The Eurovision Song Contest 1997 was the 42nd edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, held on 3 May 1997 at the Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland, and presented by Carrie Crowley and Ronan Keating. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster (RTÉ), who staged the event after winning the for with the song "The Voice" by Eimear Quinn. The 1997 contest was the seventh – and to date last – edition to be staged in Ireland, as well as the fourth to be produced by RTÉ in five years. The Point Theatre served as the host venue for the third time, following the and contests, becoming the only venue to have been the site of three Eurovision Song Contests.
Broadcasters from twenty-five countries participated in the contest, with a new relegation system introduced to determine which could participate, based on each country's average points total in previous contests. made its first appearance since , and , , , and returned after last competing in , having been prevented from competing the previous year after failing to progress from that event's qualifying round. , , and , participants in the previous year's contest, were unable to return after being excluded by the new relegation rules.
The winner was the with the song "Love Shine a Light", written by Kimberley Rew and performed by Katrina and the Waves. , , , and rounded out the top five, with Ireland earning its fifth placing in the top two within six years, Turkey achieving their best result to date, and Cyprus equalling its best result from . Five of the competing countries used televoting to determine their points, allowing the general viewing public a say in the results for the first time; following this successful trial all countries were encouraged to use this system starting from the . Entries were also permitted for the first time to feature no live music accompaniment, with each performance being able to use only a backing track rather than utilising any part of the orchestra or any live instrumentation from the performers themselves.
The 1997 event would prove to be a watershed for the contest, with many aspects of this event leaving a lasting impact on future editions of Eurovision. These included: the first openly LGBT artist, Iceland's Paul Oscar, selected to compete in the event; changes to contest rules led to the abandonment of live musical accompaniment in future events; a successful trial of televoting in five countries led to widespread adoption for all countries in 1998.
Location
The 1997 contest took place in Dublin, Ireland, following the country's victory at the with the song "The Voice", performed by Eimear Quinn. It was the seventh time that Ireland had hosted the contest, having previously staged the event in , , , , , and , with all previous events held in Dublin except the 1993 contest which was held in Millstreet. This was the fourth edition of the contest that Ireland had hosted within five years, and with this edition Ireland equalled the record for the nation which had staged the most contests, originally set by the United Kingdom in .
Given the financial impact to staging the contest for a fourth time in five years, there was early speculation following its win in the 1996 contest that (RTÉ) might stage the event as a co-production with BBC Northern Ireland. Another possibility that was brought up was hosting the contest in the Sydney Opera House in Australia in collaboration with SBS. Ultimately, the Irish broadcaster decided to organise the event on its own once again. The selected venue was the Point Theatre, a concert and events venue located amongst the Dublin Docklands which had originally been built as a train depot to serve the nearby port. Opened as a music venue in 1988, it was closed for redevelopment and expansion in 2008 and is now known as the 3Arena. The venue had previously hosted the 1994 and 1995 contests, and with this staging it became the only venue to have hosted three Eurovision Song Contests.
Participants
Per the rules of the contest twenty-five countries were allowed to participate in the event. , , , and made a return to the contest after failing to progress from the qualifying round in the previous year's contest, and returned after last competing . Conversely , , and , participants in the 1996 contest, were relegated and prevented from participating in this year's event.
Three representatives who had previously performed as lead artists in the contest competed again at this year's event. Two artists represented their country for a second consecutive year, with Şebnem Paker having represented , and Maarja-Liis Ilus, after having represented with Ivo Linna, competing as a solo artist. Alma Čardžić also made a second appearance in the contest, having previously represented . Additionally, Tor Endresen and Bettina Soriat, representing Norway and Austria, respectively, in this year's event, had performed in previous contests as backing vocalist. Endresen had supported , and Soriat had supported .
+ Eurovision Song Contest 1997 participants Country Broadcaster Artist Song Language Songwriter(s) Conductor ORF Bettina Soriat "One Step" German RTVBiH Alma Čardžić "Goodbye" Bosnian Sinan Alimanović HRT E.N.I. "" Croatian CyBC and "" () Greek Stavros Lantsias DR Kølig Kaj "" Danish ETV Maarja "" Estonian Tarmo Leinatamm Fanny "" French Jean-Paul Dréau Régis Dupré NDR Bianca Shomburg "" German ERT Marianna Zorba "" () Greek Manolis Manouselis Anacreon Papageorgiou MTV V.I.P. "" Hungarian RÚV Paul Oscar "" Icelandic RTÉ Marc Roberts "Mysterious Woman" English John Farry RAI Jalisse "" Italian Lucio Fabbri PBS Debbie Scerri "Let Me Fly" English Ray Agius Ray Agius NOS Mrs. Einstein "" Dutch Ed Hooijmans Dick Bakker NRK Tor Endresen "San Francisco" Norwegian Geir Langslet TVP Anna Maria Jopek "" Polish Krzesimir Dębski RTP "" Portuguese Thilo Krasmann ORT Alla Pugacheva "" () Russian Alla Pugacheva Rutger Gunnarsson RTVSLO Tanja Ribič "" Slovene Mojmir Sepe TVE Marcos Llunas "" Spanish Marcos Llunas Toni Xuclà SVT Blond "" Swedish Stephan Berg Curt-Eric Holmquist SRG SSR "" Italian Barbara Berta Pietro Damiani TRT Şebnem Paker and "" Turkish Levent Çoker BBC Katrina and the Waves "Love Shine a Light" English Kimberley Rew Don Airey
Qualification Due to the high number of countries wishing to enter the contest a relegation system was introduced in 1993 in order to reduce the number of countries which could compete in each year's contest. Any relegated countries would be able to return the following year, thus allowing all countries the opportunity to compete in at least one in every two editions. The audio-only qualifying round used in 1996 had been poorly received among the competing countries, and so a new relegation system was introduced by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) for 1997 and future contests. The twenty-five participants in the 1997 contest were made up of the previous year's winning country and host nation Ireland, and the twenty-four countries which had the highest average points total over the preceding four contests. In cases where the average was identical between two or more countries the total number of points scored in the most recent contest determined the final order. Any countries which were not able to compete in the 1997 contest would then be eligible to compete in the 1998 event.
Belgium, , Finland, , , and Slovakia were therefore excluded from participating in the 1997 contest; however following 's withdrawal due to the date of the final clashing with its Holocaust Remembrance Day, Bosnia and Herzegovina was subsequently provided a reprieve and allowed to participate. was also excluded due to its failure to progress through the qualifying round in 1996. The calculations used to determine the countries relegated for the 1997 contest are outlined in the table below.
Table key
+ Calculation of average points to determine qualification for the 1997 contest Rank Country Average Yearly Point Totals 1 ‡ 154.75 187 226 44 162 2 114.50 120 76 148 114 3 95.00 164 63 76 77 4 84.25 89 48 100 100 5 77.50 69 97 76 68 6 76.75 121 74 94 18 7 70.67 166 15 31 8 62.50 122 3 9 61.75 31 27 91 98 10 61.67 148 15 22 11 58.00 92 4 78 12 57.50 60 73 5 92 13 54.75 17 51 79 72 14 53.00 64 44 68 36 15 52.75 58 17 119 17 16 50.50 9 92 17 49.00 18 128 1 18 48.00 2 94 19 46.50 32 19 67 68 20 45.00 45 21 43.50 70 17 22 43.25 42 49 31 51 23 42.50 4 81 24 36.33 9 84 16 25 29.33 10 21 57 26 23.25 27 39 14 13 27 17.00 15 19 28 14.00 14 29 13.33 20 11 9 30 11.00 3 8 22 31 11.00 11 32 0.00 0 – –
Production
The Eurovision Song Contest 1997 was produced by the Irish public broadcaster (RTÉ). Noel Curran served as executive producer, Ian McGarry served as director, Paula Farrell and John Casey served as designers, and Frank McNamara served as musical director, leading the RTÉ Concert Orchestra. On behalf of the contest organisers, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the event was overseen by Marie-Claire Vionnet as scrutineer.
Rehearsals in the contest venue for the competing acts began on 28 April 1997. Each country had two technical rehearsals in the week approaching the contest, with countries rehearsing in the order in which they would perform. The first rehearsals took place on 28 and 29 April, with each country allowed 40 minutes total on stage followed by a 20-minute press conference, followed by the second rehearsals on 30 April and 1 May lasting 30 minutes. Times were also arranged during the week for the artists to be recorded in the RTÉ studios, with footage used during the postcards between each song. Three dress rehearsals were held on 2 and 3 May, with an audience in attendance during the evening dress rehearsal on 2 May. The final dress rehearsal on 3 May was also recorded for use as a production stand-by in case of problems during the live contest. A tight security presence was felt during the rehearsal week; emergency drills were held by , including evacuations of the Point Theatre, as a precaution against potential disruption from loyalist paramilitaries as part of the wider sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland.
The Irish television and radio presenter Carrie Crowley and the Irish singer Ronan Keating were the presenters of the 1997 contest. The trophy awarded to the winners was designed by Maura Whelan and Luc Racine, and was presented by the previous year's winning artist Eimear Quinn.
Format Entries Each participating broadcaster submitted one song, which was required to be no longer than three minutes in duration and performed in the language, or one of the languages, of the country which it represented. Short quotations from another language, no more than a single phrase repeated a maximum of three times, were permitted. A maximum of six performers were allowed on stage during each country's performance, and all participants were required to have reached the age of 16 in the year of the contest. Each entry could utilise all or part of the live orchestra and could use instrumental-only backing tracks. This was the first time that a competing song could be accompanied entirely with a backing track following a change to the contest rules, with the previous rules stating that any backing tracks used could only include the sound of instruments featured on stage being mimed by the performers. For those countries which opted to utilise the orchestra a separate musical director could be nominated to lead the orchestra during their performance, with the host musical director, Frank McNamara, also available to conduct for those countries which did not nominate their own conductor. The entries from Austria, Croatia, Germany and Ireland were performed entirely without live orchestration.