Is it Vienna? Strikes and blackouts loom as Eurovision 2026 kicks off | Eurovision 2026

It was to be the crowning moment of a timeless visual story: the 70th anniversary of the world’s biggest and ever-growing music event, held in a city with a fascinating and musical history.

But as Vienna prepares to host this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, which kicks off on Tuesday and culminates on Saturday, excitement will be hard to come by outside of the powerful ballads taking to the stage.

The reason for boycotting the inclusion of IsraelThe music extravaganza will take place without Spain and the Netherlands, traditionally Eurovision’s fifth and sixth major funding, Ireland, who has a history of having the most winning contributions, Slovenia and Iceland.

It’s an unprecedented moment in the tournament’s seventeen-year history and could have long-term consequences for a show forced to justify its value in a time of reduced public broadcasting.

“In the long run, Eurovision funding is going to be harder and harder as the state-sponsored broadcasts are being harassed everywhere. Europe,” Irving Wolther, a sociologist who has observed the music competition for a long time, said: “In that case political arguments are not very helpful.”

The 2025 grand final in the Swiss city of Basel was watched by more than 166 million people worldwide, but last year’s peak of 3 million viewers could be eclipsed because this year’s tournament could be blocked by media in other countries that boycotted the inclusion of Israel.

The final will not be broadcast in Ireland, Slovenia and Spain, where at least 5.9 million viewers watched the show in 2025. Instead, the Spanish broadcaster RTVE will show its special songs, while viewers in Ireland will be treated to an animated family drama. Mother and those in Slovenia to a series of programs about Palestine.

Viewership figures are also expected to drop in the Netherlands and Iceland, where the country’s broadcasters are showing the event but have refused to give away the competitors.

The three countries returning to Eurovision after skipping the event in recent years, Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova, are unlikely to give the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) another televised event to boast about.

A political debate has passed between the people who follow the race. One favorite website, Eurovision Hub, will not be covering the event, to announce at the end of last year that “we no longer feel that we are compatible with the competition as it is now”.

“It feels like the arrests this year have been terrible,” said Paul Jordan, a historian of the song contest who said he had seen friendships formed over the love of Eurovision separated by political strife. “Eurovision is supposed to be fun. But this year I feel a little sad.”

Five broken states announced a strike last DecemberAfter Israel received the all-clear to compete in front of the participating broadcasters it was given a vote on its inclusion.

It brought to a head the conflict that has been going on since the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023 and the Israeli bombing that followed. Gaza. Critics accuse the EBU of being duplicitous since Russia was banned from Eurovision after a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Just in time for Eurovision’s 70th anniversary, the EBU recently announced an expansion into the Asian market, with the inaugural Eurovision Song Contest in Asia taking place in Bangkok, Thailand, on Saturday 14 November.

For Vienna, the Director of Eurovision, Martin Green, promised a spectacular show that will celebrate “the unique ability of this contest to bring people together across borders and generations”. The new version of the Eurovision official app will give fans access to historical information including voting results and contestants spanning seven decades.

But it is doubtful whether apolitical ambitions will be prevalent on the streets of Vienna in the run-up to Saturday’s final. As well as the two semi-finals of the competition on Tuesday and Thursday, the capital of Austria will host meetings for and against the participation of Israel.

About 3,000 protesters are expected to rally in Resselpark on Friday to commemorate Palestine’s Nakba Day, honoring the more than 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes during the 1948 war surrounding the creation of Israel.

On the day of the grand finale alone, the Vienna police said they were expecting about 3,000 people to take part in the protest under the slogan “Solidarity with Palestine”. The demonstration against the theme “12 points against Zionism – for Israel to participate in Eurovision” was registered for 50 to 100 people.

According to a recent research for the Austrian newspaper Der Standard, only 26% of respondents agreed with the statement that the music competition “brought Europe closer”, while 52% said that hosting the event was too expensive for Austria.

In the last two editions, geopolitics has not only manifested itself in the form of protests around the venue of the competition, but also in the music played on stage.

In 2024, Israeli contestant Eden Golan was selected to compete by the EBU after changing the lyrics to his song Hurricane. His original title, October Rain, was thought to be a reference to Hamas’ October 7 attacks and was banned for violating neutrality laws.

The country’s 2025 contender, Yuval Raphael, survived the Nova festival, and his ballad New Day Will Rise appeared to reflect his pain.

In both races Israel performed strongly in the polls, but the Israeli government’s heavy promotion of its performance through its media channels led to criticism.

Changes to the voting rules in the 2026 edition mean that the majority of votes will be reduced from 20 to 10 per payment method, such as online, text or phone calls.

In Vienna, Israel will be represented by 28-year-old Noam Bettan. The announcement of his song, Michelle, initially led people to think that he could name Michelle Rukovicin, a female soldier who was seriously wounded on the 7 October attack and left in a coma, but recovered and married his long-time girlfriend last year.

The actual lyrics of the song, sung in French, Hebrew and English, make the theory sound absurd, however, acting as it does with the singer’s “dangerous love” for the woman he calls “the queen of trouble”.

The bookies have a chance to enter Israel as the fifth, with Finnish actor Liekinheitin, written by Linda Lampenius and Pete Parkkonen, leading the field. Other winners include Greek rapper Akylas Ferto and Danish singer Søren Torpegaard Lund’s Før Vi Går Hjem.

British entry Look Mum No Computer looks to be the outsider to win, with his song Eins, Zwei, Drei priced at 80/1 with William Hill.