The Eurovision Song Contest 2013 was the 58th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It consisted of two semi-finals on 14 and 16 May and a final on 18 May 2013, held at the Malmö Arena in Malmö, Sweden, and presented by Petra Mede. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster (SVT), which staged the event after winning the for with the song "Euphoria" by Loreen. It was the first time that only one host had presented the show since the . Eric Saade, who had previously represented , acted as the green room host in the final.
Broadcasters from thirty-nine countries participated in the contest, with returning after a one-year absence. , , , and all ceased their participation for various reasons. Slovakia and Turkey have yet to return to the contest since.
The winner was the song "Only Teardrops", written by Lise Cabble, Julia Fabrin Jakobsen, and Thomas Stengaard, and performed by Emmelie de Forest representing . The song had the highest average score in both the televote and jury vote. , , , and rounded out the top five.
This year marked the reintroduction of the "Parade of Nations", a concept which was first used in the contest from to (with the exception of ) before making a one-off return in . The concept had also been used, on-and-off, in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest since . It sees all competing artist performing in the final presenting themselves with their national flags before the contest begins. This year, they entered the main stage by walking across a bridge over the audience. This idea has subsequently continued in every edition of the contest onwards.
The EBU reported that 170 million viewers watched the semi-finals and final of the 2013 edition.
Location
On 8 July 2012, the Swedish broadcaster (SVT) announced that the Malmö Arena in Malmö would be the host venue for the 2013 contest. This was the fifth time after , , and that the competition was held in Sweden, and the second time that it was held in Malmö, after 1992. SVT had expressed the desire to host the contest at a slightly smaller venue than previous years, as well as smaller environment which is easier to dedicate and decorate for other celebrations and festivities of the event within the host city. These were factors in the choice of the Malmö Arena as the host venue, and Malmö as Sweden's third-largest city by population after Stockholm and Gothenburg, the two other initial location-bidders.
The city's proximity to the borders with Denmark and Norway also spilled over into some of the producers' actions. Denmark was eventually allocated to compete in one semi-final and Norway in the other, taking into consideration the number of Danish and Norwegian fans who were likely to travel for the contest, with the arena being relatively small and thus not suitable for accommodating both countries' fans in one semi-final. The Øresund Bridge was also used as the main artistic medium for the theme of the contest, as an expression of binding cultures.
Bidding phase
On the night of the final for the , the chief executive of SVT, Eva Hamilton, stated to the Swedish media that various venues in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö were being considered for hosting the 2013 contest. One alternative put forward in the Expressen was to hold the competition at three venues – the semi-finals in Gothenburg and Malmö, and the final in Stockholm. This proposal was dismissed as unfeasible by SVT, which declared that the contest would be hosted in only one city.
On 20 June 2012, it was announced that Gothenburg had withdrawn from the bidding process due to the city being the host of the Göteborg Horse Show in late April 2013. There were also concerns about the availability of hotel rooms due to a variety of other events taking place in the same time frame as the Eurovision Song Contest. On 9 July, the executive producer for the 2013 contest, Martin Österdahl, told the Swedish press "that he felt uncomfortable with the decisions and choices made by the countries that had previously hosted the contest", stating that he and SVT wanted the 2013 contest to be "smaller, closer and personal". SVT also claimed that the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) also disclosed that the EBU had asked potential future host broadcasters that "there were demands about reducing the scale of the event, given the increased costs of recent editions".
The following candidate cities had provisionally reserved venues and hotel rooms, as part of their bids to host the 2013 contest. On 8 July 2012, the Malmö Arena was confirmed as the host venue for the contest. Malmö Arena is Sweden's fourth-largest indoor arena, after Friends Arena, Tele2 Arena and Globe Arena, all located in Stockholm.
Key
Host venue City Venue Notes Gothenburg Scandinavium The venue hosted the 1985 contest. Swedish Exhibition Centre Withdrew on 20 June 2012. Malmö Malmö Arena The venue has hosted the Melodifestivalen heats for the past four years. Stockholm Friends Arena Opened in October 2012; hosted the final of Melodifestivalen in March 2013.
Participants
On 21 December 2012, the EBU announced that broadcasters from 39 countries would compete in the Eurovision Song Contest 2013. , which was last represented in , confirmed that it would be returning to the contest following a one-year break. and both decided not to enter the 2013 contest due to financial difficulties, while and did not participate for different reasons.
Valentina Monetta who had represented , returned to the contest for the second year in a row. She would also return and . Elitsa Todorova and Stoyan Yankoulov had represented . Nevena Božović, representing Serbia as part of Moje 3, was the first contestant to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest after competing in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, where she came third for . She would also represent .
Bledar Sejko, representing Albania, was the on-stage guitarist for . Gor Sujyan, representing Armenia, was a backing vocalist for . Aliona Moon, representing Moldova, was a backing vocalist for . In addition, Pasha Parfeny, who represented Moldova in 2012, was the composer of the 2013 Moldovan entry and accompanied Aliona Moon on stage on the piano. Lauri Pihlap and Kaido Põldma, who were backing vocalists for Estonia, had won Eurovision as part of the group 2XL for , together with Dave Benton and Tanel Padar.
+ Eurovision Song Contest 2013 participants Country Broadcaster Artist Song Language Songwriter(s) RTSH Adrian Lulgjuraj and Bledar Sejko "" Albanian AMPTV Dorians "Lonely Planet" English ORF Natália Kelly "Shine" English İTV Farid Mammadov "Hold Me" English BTRC Alyona Lanskaya "Solayoh" English RTBF Roberto Bellarosa "Love Kills" English BNT Elitsa Todorova and Stoyan Yankoulov "" () Bulgarian HRT Klapa s Mora "" Croatian Goran Topolovac CyBC Despina Olympiou "" () Greek DR Emmelie de Forest "Only Teardrops" English ERR Birgit "" Estonian Yle Krista Siegfrids "Marry Me" English Amandine Bourgeois "" French GPB Nodi Tatishvili and Sophie Gelovani "Waterfall" English NDR Cascada "Glorious" English ERT Koza Mostra Agathon Iakovidis "Alcohol Is Free" Greek MTVA ByeAlex "" (Zoohacker Remix) Hungarian RÚV Eythor Ingi "" Icelandic RTÉ Ryan Dolan "Only Love Survives" English IBA Moran Mazor "" () Hebrew RAI Marco Mengoni "" Italian LTV PeR "Here We Go" English LRT Andrius Pojavis "Something" English Andrius Pojavis MRT Esma and Lozano "" () Macedonian, Romani PBS Gianluca "Tomorrow" English TRM Aliona Moon "" Romanian RTCG Who See "" () Montenegrin TROS Anouk "Birds" English NRK Margaret Berger "I Feed You My Love" English TVR Cezar "It's My Life" English Cristian Faur C1R Dina Garipova "What If" English SMRTV Valentina Monetta "" Italian RTS Moje 3 "" () Serbian RTVSLO Hannah "Straight into Love" English RTVE ESDM "" Spanish SVT Robin Stjernberg "You" English SRG SSR Takasa "You and Me" English NTU Zlata Ognevich "Gravity" English BBC Bonnie Tyler "Believe in Me" English
Other countries Active EBU members Active EBU member broadcasters in , , the , , , , , and confirmed non-participation prior to the announcement of the participants list by the EBU. broadcaster TRT did the same, citing dissatisfaction with the 2009 introduction of a mixed jury/televote voting system and the status of the "Big Five" rule.
Non-EBU member Liechtensteiner broadcaster 1FLTV had been trying to join the EBU since 2010. Director Peter Kölbel had said that due to a lack of financial subsidies from the government, EBU membership participation to participate in the contest would be impossible to obtain until 2013 at the earliest; however, it was later announced that the country would not take part in 2013.
Format The combination of televoting and jury voting results underwent changes that were detailed in the official rules for the 2013 contest. Each member of a respective country's jury was required to rank every song, except that of their own country. The voting results from each member of a particular country's jury were combined to produce an overall ranking from first to last place. Likewise, the televoting results were also interpreted as a full ranking, taking into account the full televoting result rather than just the top ten. The combination of the jury's full ranking and the televote's full ranking produced an overall ranking of all competing entries. The song which scored the highest overall rank received 12 points, while the tenth-best ranked song received 1-point. It was announced in the official Media Handbook that an official app would also be available for voters to vote via during the contest.
Official sponsors of the broadcast were the main Swedish-Finnish telecommunication company TeliaSonera, and the German cosmetics company . The competition sponsors were the makeup company IsaDora cosmetics, the supermarket ICA and Tetra Pak.
The Stockholm based singer and actress Sarah Dawn Finer also appeared in both semi-finals and the final in sketches as the comic character Lynda Woodruff. "Lynda" presented the votes for Sweden at the previous contest in Baku. Finer also appeared in the final as herself, performing the ABBA song "The Winner Takes It All" before the results were announced. The ex-Swedish football captain Zlatan Ibrahimović was revealed on 28 April to be part of the opening segment of the Eurovision final, in a pre-recorded message welcoming viewers to Malmö, his home city. Eric Saade, who represented , was the host of the green room during the final.
Semi-final allocation draw
The draw that determined the semi-final allocation was held on 17 January 2013 at the Malmö City Hall. A draw at the EBU headquarters determined that, due to their geographical proximity with Malmö, Denmark would perform in the first semi-final, while Norway would perform in the second semi-final. This provided a maximum availability of tickets for visitors from both countries. The EBU also allocated Israel to the second semi-final after a request from the delegation in order to avoid complications with a national holiday coinciding with the date of the first semi-final. The remaining participating countries, excluding the automatic finalists (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom), were split into five pots, based on voting patterns from the previous nine years. From these pots, 15 (in addition to Denmark) were allocated to compete in the first semi-final on 14 May 2013 and 15 (in addition to Norway and Israel) were allocated to compete in the second semi-final on 16 May 2013.
The pots were calculated by the televoting partner Digame and were as follows:
Pot 1 Pot 2 Pot 3 Pot 4 Pot 5
Running order