Eurovision Song Contest 1994

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**Eurovision Song Contest 1994**

Date	30 April 1994
Presenter(s)	Cynthia ní Mhurchú & Gerry Ryan
Host Conductor	Noel Kelehan
Host Broadcaster	RTE
Venue	Point Theatre, Dublin, Ireland
Winning Song	Rock 'N' Roll Kids (Ireland)
Voting system	Each country awarded 12, 10, 8-1 points to their 10 favourite songs
Number of Songs	25
Countries Making Debut	Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, & Slovakia
Nul points	Lithuania
Interval Act	Riverdance

The Eurovision Song Contest 1994 was the 39th Eurovision Song Contest and was held on April 30, 1994 in the Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland. The presenters were Cynthia ní Mhurchú and Gerry Ryan. The pair hosted the evening in French, English and Irish. Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan from Ireland were the winners of this Eurovision with the song, Rock 'N' Roll Kids. This was a record sixth victory for Ireland, giving it the outright record number of victories at the Eurovision Song Contest.

The contest opened with a brief film of stars floating in water, fireworks and caricatures dancing around, drinking coffee and biking. The cameras then went live to the venue itself, where dancers dressed in white and wearing caricatured heads of well-known Irish figures, arrived on stage carrying European countries’ flags. This year’s video postcards had a literary theme, showing contestants reading, fishing and doing other activities around Ireland.

To cope with the increasing number of countries wishing to participate in the contest, for 1994 the European Broadcasting Union ruled that the five lowest-placed countries from the preceding year's contest would not participate. This meant that Belgium, Denmark, Israel, Slovenia and Turkey did not participate this year opening spaces for the overwhelming amount of new countries. This contest also saw Luxembourg withdraw from Eurovision indefinitely.

Poland took part for the first time and caused a scandal when Edyta Górniak broke the rules by singing her song in English during the dress rehearsal (which is shown to the juries who selected the winner until 1997). Only six countries demanded that Poland should be disqualified, though the rules required 13 countries to complain before Poland could be removed from the competition. The proposed removal did not occur and Poland went on to come 2nd in the contest.

When the voting started, Hungary took the lead from the first six juries and was well ahead of all the other countries. However, Ireland powered their way through the score board ending up the winners with a 60 point lead on second placed Poland. This was a surprising result since nobody expected the Irish to win this year’s contest.

The interval act was the first ever performance of the Irish dancing spectacular Riverdance, featuring Michael Flatley and Jean Butler.

1 Results
2 Voting structure
3 Map

Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan performing Rock 'N' Roll Kids for Ireland at Eurovision 1994.

Cynthia ní Mhurchú and Gerry Ryan, the presenters.

[edit] Results

Draw	Country	Language	Artist	Song	Translation	Place	Points
1	Sweden	Swedish	Marie Bergman & Roger Pontare	Stjärnorna	The Stars	13	48
2	Finland	Finnish	CatCat	Bye, Bye Baby	-	22	11
3	Republic of Ireland	English	Paul Harrington & Charlie McGettigan	Rock 'n' Roll Kids	-	1	226
4	Cyprus	Greek	Evridiki	Ime anthropos ki ego	I'm A Person Too	11	51
5	Iceland	Icelandic	Sigga	Nætur	Nights	12	49
6	United Kingdom	English	Frances Ruffelle	Lonely Symphony (We will be free)	-	10	63
7	Croatia	Croatian	Tony Cetinski	Nek' ti bude ljubav sva	You May Have All The Love	16	27
8	Portugal	Portuguese	Sara Tavares	Chamar a música	Call The Music	8	73
9	Switzerland	Italian	Duilio	Sto pregando	I'm Praying	19	15
10	Estonia	Estonian	Silvi Vrait	Nagu Merelaine	Like A Seawave	24	2
11	Romania	Romanian	Dan Bittman	Dincolo de nori	Beyond The Clouds	21	14
12	Malta	English	Chris & Moira	More Than Love	-	5	97
13	Netherlands	Dutch	Willeke Alberti	Waar is de zon?	Where Is The Sun?	23	4
14	Germany	German	MeKaDo	Wir geben 'ne Party	We're Giving A Party	3	128
15	Slovakia	Slovak	Tublatanka	Nekonečná pieseň	Neverending Song	19	15
16	Lithuania	Lithuanian	Ovidijus Vyšniauskas	Lopšinė mylimai	Sweethearts' Lullaby	25	0
17	Norway	Norwegian	Elisabeth Andreassen & Jan Werner Danielsen	Duett	Duet	6	76
18	Bosnia and Herzegovina	Bosnian	Alma & Dejan	Ostani kraj mene	Stay Beside Me	15	39
19	Greece	Greek	Costas Bigalis & The Sea Lovers	To trehandiri	The Trehandiri	14	44
20	Austria	German	Petra Frey	Für den Frieden der Welt	For The Peace Of The World	17	19
21	Spain	Spanish	Alejandro Abad	Ella no es ella	She's Not Her	18	17
22	Hungary	Hungarian	Friderika	Kinek mondjam el vétkeimet	Whom Can I Tell My Sins?	4	122
23	Russia	Russian	Youddiph	Vyechniy stranik	Eternal Wanderer	9	70
24	Poland	Polish	Edyta Górniak	To nie ja	That's Not Me	2	166
25	France	French	Nina Morato	Je suis un vrai garçon	I Am A Tomboy	7	74

[edit] Voting structure

Each country had a jury who awarded 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points for their top ten songs.

With advances in technology, this was the first contest in which the spokesperson for each national jury appeared on-screen, live from their own countries.

In the early stages of the voting it looked as if Hungary was surging to victory in its first-ever Eurovision appearance, winning the maximum twelve points from the first three juries. However, this turned out to be completely deceptive, as from that point on it was virtually one-way traffic for Ireland, which became the first country to win the contest for a third year in succession.