Eurovision Young Musicians 2024 will be taking place this coming Saturday with Norway taking on the hosting role in Stormen Concert Hall in the city of Bodø. Norway have a long history of taking hosting responsibilities for Eurovision events spanning back to 1981.
Eurovision Young Musicians
Norway were confirmed as this year’s host country for Eurovision Young Musicians in July 2023. It will be in the city of Bodø which is one of this year’s three European Capitals of Culture alongside Tartu in Estonia and Bad Ischl in Austria. The city is located in the Nordland county and have a population of just over 50,000. Unlike the main Eurovision Song Contest, the Young Musicians contest does not have direct rules that suggest the winner will automatically host the following year, in fact recently both the United Kingdom and France have hosted the contest despite not even participating the contest before.
This marks a return for the contest back to the Nordic country after they first hosted in 2000 in the city of Bergen, back then the city also welcomed two semi finals during the week of the contest to whittle the entries down for the final. This year however all 11 competing countries will perform on Saturday.
Eurovision Song Contest
Since joining the contest in 1960, Norway have played host at the Eurovision Song Contest on three occasions, all succeeding their three wins the previous years.
After several misfortunes at the contest they won in 1985 for the first time with Bobbysocks. When they played host the following year, broadcasters NRK opted for the city of Bergen over bids from Oslo, Stavanger, Sandnes and Trondheim. The venue was Grieghallen which was also home to Eurovision Young Musicians in 2000.
10 years on and the honour of hosting once again landed with Norway after Secret Garden’s win in 1995. The contest between those years had grown dramatically and thus now required a larger venue. For the first time, Eurovision then travelled to Norway’s capital of Oslo, specifically in the Oslo Spektrum. This was the first year where all competing entries were subject to judgement of a jury before even reaching the show in Oslo. While Norway as hosts were granted a spot in their own show, the other 22 entries had to be selected through audio tape submissions.
The final time to date the contest was in Norway was in 2010 after the iconic victory for Alexander Rybak in Moscow the year before. It remained in Oslo once more however it was now homed in the larger Telenor Arena in Bærum, a neighbouring municipality in the Greater Oslo region.
Junior Eurovision Song Contest
Though Norway’s appearance in children’s edition of the contest was short lived, they did also host an edition of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest.
Norway were a pioneer for the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in the early days after their involvement in similar format MGP Nordic. While neighbouring Denmark hosted the first contest in 2003, the baton was all set to be passed to Manchester in United Kingdom for 2004. When the funding however could not be met, broadcasters ITV pulled the plug on hosting and so the EBU had to find alternatives.
After Croatia as reigning champions initially took on the role, they too had to withdraw offering to host due to scheduling conflicts. With 5 months to go until broadcast, it instead fell on Norway after NRK offered. This time the contest went to Håkons Hall in Lillehammer.
Following NRK’s year at the helm, Norway had one final appearance at the contest in 2005 before withdrawing alongside Denmark due to the ongoing concerns of the pressure placed on the children in the contest.
Eurovision Young Dancers
Norway also has one hosting credit on the dance counterpart to Eurovision Young Musicians, the biannual Eurovision Young Dancers which last took place in 2017.
Norway had a long history within the contest of taking part and one year after hosting the Eurovision Song Contest, in 2011 they once more brought the Eurovision spirit to the capital Oslo when Eurovision Young Dancers was held in the Dansens Hus. This edition was symbolic as the only event in Eurovision history where Kosovo participated. Norway also managed to win the contest that year with Daniel Sarr declared champion after a final duel with Slovenia.
Other Eurovision Events
Within other Eurovision events, Norway never hosted the short lived Eurovision Choir, though did participate in the most recent edition in 2019. Norway however never participated at all in either the Eurovision Dance Contest or the Eurovision Magic Circus Show.
Norway also have the honour of being the first ever country to host an anniversary commemoration of the Eurovision Song Contest. In 1981 following the 25th edition the small town of Mysen in Norway brought together several of the winners at the time to perform live. This included several big names of the time including Sandie Shaw, Lulu, Johnny Logan who at the time had only won once, Udo Jurgens and Lys Assia. The concert did honour all winners up to that point, with absentees getting clips of their win displayed.
A similar concert or contest was not attempted again until the 50th anniversary “Congratulations” held in Copenhagen in 2005 and a further celebration “Eurovision’s Greatest Hits” held in London in 2015 for the 60th anniversary.
Norway will this weekend be represented at the Eurovision Young Musicians 2024 by Sebastian Egebakken Svenøy who will be competing on piano.
Image Source: Gerd Eichmann / Wikimedia
