The Eurovision Song Contest 2000 was the 45th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, held on 13 May 2000 at the Stockholm Globe Arena in Stockholm, Sweden, and presented by Kattis Ahlström and Anders Lundin. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster (SVT), who staged the event after winning the for with the song "Take Me to Your Heaven" by Charlotte Nilsson. With an audience of 13,000 people present, the 2000 contest was the largest seen in its history until that point.
Broadcasters from twenty-four countries participated in the contest. , , , and , which had participated in the 1999 contest, were relegated after achieving the lowest average points totals over the preceding five contests. These countries were replaced by in its first contest appearance, , , and which were relegated from the previous year's event, and which returned after a two-year absence.
The winner was with the song "Fly on the Wings of Love", written by Jørgen Olsen and performed by the Olsen Brothers. Although Denmark was not a pre-contest favourite to win the title, "Fly on the Wings of Love" received the third-highest points total yet seen in the contest, gaining 195 points, and the song went on to become a success in singles charts across Europe. , , , and rounded out the top five, with Russia and Estonia achieving their best ever results, and Latvia achieving one of the highest placings for a début entry in the contest's history. The 2000 contest was the first to be broadcast over the internet, with a webcast of the live show available in Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia through Microsoft's MSN portals.
Location
The 2000 contest took place in Stockholm, Sweden, following the country's victory at the with the song "Take Me to Your Heaven", performed by Charlotte Nilsson. It was the fourth time that Sweden had staged the contest, following the , and contests held in Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö, respectively. The selected venue was the Stockholm Globe Arena, also known as in Swedish, an indoor arena first opened in 1989 and the world's largest hemispherical building. With capacity for over 16,000 people, which was reduced slightly to 13,000 for the contest, the Globe Arena was the largest venue the Eurovision Song Contest had ever seen at that point.
Host broadcaster (SVT) approached venues in three citiesnamely Gothenburg, Malmö and Stockholmto establish a suitable host city and venue for the contest. The venues chosen following this initial round of discussions were the Scandinavium in Gothenburg, which had previously hosted the 1985 contest; in Malmö; and in Stockholm. Malmö was subsequently eliminated as a potential host city, due to high costs required to complete a suitable arena within the Malmömässan area and which would still have a relatively small audience capacity compared to the other venues on offer. Of the remaining options, Stockholm and were ultimately chosen by SVT managing director Sam Nilsson to host the event. Stockholm's bid won out over Gothenburg due to the lower costs of producing the event in the capital as well as with Stockholm having not hosted the event since 1975.
Participants
Per the rules of the contest twenty-four countries were allowed to participate in the 2000 contest, one more than the twenty-three countries that participated in the . entered the contest for the first time, and , , , , and returned after being absent from the previous year's event. 1999 participants , , , and did not participate in this year's contest.
Several of the performing artists had previously competed as lead artists in past editions. Serafín Zubiri competed in the contest for a second time, having previously participated for . Roger Pontare competed as a solo artist in this year's edition, following his appearance for where he competed alongside Marie Bergman. The two members of the Cypriot duo Voice, Alexandros Panayi and Christina Argyri, had also both participated in Eurovision before, with Panayi having previously represented , while Argyri had been a backing performer at the same contest. A number of former participating artists also returned to perform as backing vocalists for some of the competing entries: , having previously represented alongside Stefán Hilmarsson, returned to support the Icelandic duo August and Telma as a backing singer; Albano Carrisi, who twice represented and with Romina Power as Al Bano and Romina Power, supported Switzerland's Jane Bogaert on stage; and , a member of the group Blond that represented , was a backing singer for Malta's Claudette Pace in this year's event. Additionally, Eamonn Toal competed for Ireland in this year's contest, having previously served as backing vocalist for .
+ Eurovision Song Contest 2000 participants Country Broadcaster Artist Song Language Songwriter(s) ORF The Rounder Girls "All to You" English Dave Moskin RTBF Nathalie Sorce "" French Silvio Pezzuto HRT Goran Karan "" Croatian CyBC Voice "" () Greek, Italian DR Olsen Brothers "Fly on the Wings of Love" English Jørgen Olsen ETV Ines "Once in a Lifetime" English YLE Nina Åström "A Little Bit" English Sofia Mestari "" French NDR Stefan Raab "" German, English Stefan Raab RÚV August and "Tell Me!" English RTÉ Eamonn Toal "Millennium of Love" English IBA PingPong "" () Hebrew LTV Brainstorm "My Star" English Renārs Kaupers MRT XXL "100% " (100% ) Macedonian, English PBS Claudette Pace "Desire" English NOS Linda "No Goodbyes" English NRK Charmed "My Heart Goes Boom" English TVR Taxi "The Moon" English ORT Alsou "Solo" English TVE Serafín Zubiri "" Spanish José María Purón SVT Roger Pontare "When Spirits Are Calling My Name" English SRG SSR Jane Bogaert "" Italian TRT Pınar and "" Turkish, English BBC Nicki French "Don't Play That Song Again" English
Qualification Due to the high number of countries wishing to enter the contest, a relegation system was introduced in 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 relegation rules introduced for the 1997 contest were again utilised ahead of the 2000 contest, based on each country's average points total in previous contests. However the rules were modified for 2000 to ensure that the four participating countries which provide the largest financial contribution towards the organisation of the contest would be given an automatic place in the contest every year. This groupcomprising , , and the was subsequently dubbed the "Big Four" group of countries. Alongside the previous year's winning country and the Big Four, the remaining places in the 2000 contest were given to any eligible countries which had not competed in the 1999 contest, and the countries which had competed in 1999 that had obtained the highest average points total over the preceding five 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.
, , , and were therefore excluded from participating in the 2000 contest, to make way for the return of Finland, Macedonia, Romania, Russia and Switzerland, and debuting country Latvia. Broadcasters in , , and , participating countries from the which had not competed in 1999, and were therefore eligible to participate in 2000, decided not to enter, reportedly due to financial reasons.
The calculations used to determine the countries relegated for the 2000 contest are outlined in the table below.
Table key Qualifier Automatic qualifier New/returning countries which did not compete in 1999
+ Calculation of average points to determine qualification for the 2000 contest Rank Country Average Yearly Point Totals 1 116.80 76 77 227 166 38 2 115.33 81 172 93 3 90.40 100 100 36 53 163 4 89.00 44 162 157 64 18 5 84.60 91 98 24 131 79 6 81.40 76 68 66 165 32 7 76.00 78 5 150 71 8 75.50 94 82 36 90 9 75.20 148 114 0 79 35 10 62.67 92 25 71 11 62.25 1 22 86 140 12 61.50 31 51 18 146 13 57.60 79 72 98 37 2 14 53.00 67 68 12 65 15 50.80 119 17 96 21 1 16 49.00 21 57 121 25 21 17 47.50 8 22 122 38 18 45.40 84 16 60 17 50 19 44.80 94 18 95 3 14 20 33.75 14 13 22 86 21 29.00 5 92 0 36 12 22 27.20 15 31 54 19 17 23 25.00 17 33 24 16.00 16 25 15.50 9 22 26 13.00 13 27 9.00 22 5 0 28 6.00 6 – –
Production
The Eurovision Song Contest 2000 was produced SVT; Svante Stockselius served as executive producer, Peter Lundin served as producer, Marius Bratten served as director, and Mikael Varhelyi and Kristofer Röhr served as designers. On behalf of the contest organisers, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the event was overseen by Christine Marchal-Ortiz as scrutineer. The contest was presented by the journalist Kattis Ahlström and the television presenter Anders Lundin.
The graphic design, including the contest's logo, scoreboard, on-screen overlays and postcards, was developed by Stockholm Design Lab. The chosen logo, presented publicly in early 2000, was a pair of open lips, and described as "a sensual, yet stylistically pure, mouth representing song, dialogue and speech" by its designers; ahead of the this logo was also considered by contest organisers when developing the contest's new generic logo for that edition. The logo also featured prominently as part of the set design; the outline of the mouth featured on a display next to the stage and was filled with a distorted form of each country's national flag as its entry was performed. The 2000 contest was the first to incorporate LED display technology within the set design, with five LED pillars featuring on stage during each performance and displaying images designed to complement each song's theme or presentation and producing a unique backdrop to each performance.
A compilation album featuring all 24 competing entries was released within Europe ahead of the contest, through the German record labels Ariola and BMG. This was the first time an official album had been commissioned by the organisers and followed a previous attempt at an album for the 1999 contest which failed to contain all entries in that year's contest due to copyright issues.
Format Entries Each participating broadcaster was represented by one song, which was required to be no longer than three minutes in duration. A maximum of six performers were allowed on stage during each country's performance and all performers were required to be at least 16 years old in the year the contest was held. Selected entries were not permitted to be released commercially before 1 January 2000, and were then only allowed to be released in the country they represented until after the contest was held (except as part of a compilation album of all participating songs). The final submission date for all selected entries to be received by the contest organisers was set for 10 March. This submission was required to include a sound recording of the entry and backing track for use during the contest, a video presentation of the song on stage being performed by the artists, and the text of the song lyrics in its original language and translations in French and English for distribution to the participating broadcasters, their commentators and juries. Selected performers were required to be available from 7 May, with a staggered timetable for rehearsals in the contest venue to be developed by the organisers.
Following the confirmation of the 24 competing countries, the draw to determine the running order was held in Stockholm on 21 November 1999.
Voting procedure