The day has finally arrived for the official host city of the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 to be revealed, and Rotterdam is the chosen city with the contest taking place in the Rotterdam Ahoy venue. This will be the first time we’ve visited Rotterdam, making it the third new Eurovision city in a row, after Lisbon and Tel Aviv hosted in 2018 and 2019 respectively. The dates of the contest have also been revealed with the Semi-Finals taking place on 12 May 2020 and 14 May 2020, and the Grand Final taking place on 16 May 2020.
The host city was revealed via the official Eurovision YouTube Channel with reigning champion Duncan Laurence narrating the visual. It’s an extremely cute video that certainly melted our hearts and captured the whole essence of the Eurovision Song Contest whilst accompanying it with visuals of the people, cities, villages, and scenic beauty of the Netherlands.
Watch Duncan Laurence Announce Rotterdam As The Host City Of Eurovision 2020 Here:
It’s the first time the Netherlands has hosted the Eurovision Song Contest since 1980, and last year marked their first win in over 40 years, but their fifth win overall – this really shows that all countries have a shot at winning even if they haven’t won in some time. Duncan Laurence won with the song “Arcade”, and he truly is the perfect person to narrate the video above.
The Executive Supervisor for the Eurovision Song Contest, Jon Ola Sand said: “Rotterdam has shown fantastic enthusiasm and commitment and has the right facilities to welcome delegations from over 40 countries next May. We look forward to working with Rotterdam and NPO, NOS and AVROTROS on an incredible state-of-the-art Eurovision Song Contest in a great city next year.”
NPO’s director general Shula Rijxman said: “It is our wish to organize a Eurovision Song Contest that is embraced throughout the Netherlands and also functions as a showcase for our country in Europe. We are happy that as a public broadcaster we can now really work together with Rotterdam and the Ahoy arena to organize a unique event that connects and inspires all inhabitants of the Netherlands and Europe.”
Various countries are currently accepting song submissions for the contest, with many confirming national selection shows – with Sweden revealing the dates for their Melodifestivalen, and Australia also confirming a national selection show. There are still some countries that haven’t confirmed whether they’ll be taking part, however, Ukraine is set to return, this year, after withdrawing due to not being able to come to a contractual agreement with their national selection winner MARUV, last year.
We’re excited for all the Eurovision announcements to start and this sure does kickstart it all off. We can’t wait to see what Rotterdam has in-store for us, come May 2020.