Austria has announced which city will stage the 2026 Eurovision contest with Vienna being named as the host.
The songwriting competition is heading to Austria after JJ won this year’s event with his operatic song Wasted Love.
Roland Weissmann, the Director General of Austrian broadcaster ORF, explained why Vienna was picked.
“After thorough examination and based on a unanimous jury assessment, ORF has concluded that Vienna’s bid is the most attractive not only in terms of infrastructure and logistics, but also economically,” Weissmann said.
Next year’s competition will run on Saturday 18th May at Austria’s largest indoor arena, the Wiener Stadthalle. The two live Semi-Finals will take place on Tuesday 12th May and also Thursday 14th May.
“Vienna’s reputation as one of the most musical cities in the world, and its location in the heart of Europe, makes it the perfect Host City for the 70th Eurovision Song Contest,” said Martin Green, the Director of the Eurovision Song Contest.
“The city’s exceptional Stadthalle was a great venue for the 60th Contest in 2015 and we’re very much looking forward to welcoming delegations, artists and fans alike back there next May as the world’s largest live music event celebrates 70 glorious years of being United by Music.”
It’s the third time Vienna has hosted the event. They first staged the competition in 1967, and more recently in 2015 after Conchita Wurst raised the trophy high for Rise Like a Phoenix. It was also the first time Australia appeared in the competition with Guy Sebastian representing our nation.
OUTinPerth was on the ground in Vienna for Eurovision 2015 so we can attest to it being a great city to visit, and the venue is spectacular.
Aside from all the fun of Eurovision, the entire city is also a celebration of Mozart, Austria’s most famous composer. It’s also the home of a beautiful opera house.
There’s mountains of pastries to indulge in, amazing shops, and we do recall ending up in a nightclub that has a bathtub in the middle of the room, which was very B-Ark, and left us thinking about the nature of life, the universe and everything.
