We need to talk about Eurovision staging fatigue

As the smoke machines hiss into action in Basel’s St. Jakobshalle Arena, it’s hard not to marvel at what the Eurovision Song Contest has become. What began in 1956 as a modest radio broadcast with seated singers and polite applause has transformed into a global spectacle of LED panels, camera trickery, hydraulic lifts, and budget-busting pyrotechnics. It’s big. It’s dazzling. It’s exhausting.

Too exhausting? Increasingly, there’s a growing sense that Eurovision’s obsession with staging is not just upstaging the artists—it’s threatening the contest’s very soul.

When technology drowns talent

Belgium’s 2024 entry provides a textbook example. With a well-liked artist and a song that performed well in pre-contest polls, expectations were high. But when it came to the stage, things fell apart. Disjointed visuals, uninspired direction, and a lack of cohesion with the music saw the entry sink in the semi-finals. Fans were stunned. A strong vocal, a solid song—undone by sub-par staging.

This year in Basel, Ukraine’s Ziferblat faced a different hurdle: cost. In an interview with Eurovoix, guitarist Valentyn Leshchynskyi noted how specific staging elements command eye-watering prices. Using smoke on stage would cost €15,000, an effect that came in at €7,600 in Sweden last year. Their concept had to change. The staging they imagined never made it to Switzerland.

The semi-finals saw eleven acts out of the contest including an early fan-fave, Red Sebastian who sang for Belgium. His act relied heavily on the LED backdrop, staging effects and camera trickery. The overwhelming staging likely contributed to its elimination. For Cyprus Theo Evan’s performance centred on two scaffolding towers and was based around the image of the Vitruvian man. Coming across as a video rather than a live show (despite the vocals making it clear it wasn’t prerecorded) maybe disconnected the performer from the televoter.

Australia opened Semi-Final 2 with an eccentric electronic track. However, the performance was criticised for its chaotic staging and overt sexual innuendo, which some felt overshadowed the song itself. The lack of cohesion between the song and its presentation likely contributed to its elimination.

Czechia’s Adonxs delivered a vocally challenging performance but faced criticism for staging choices that failed to connect with the song’s message of his relationship with his father. Some fans felt that the costume and stage presentation failed to convey the intended mood, which may have contributed to the entry’s elimination.

Denmark’s 2024 performance met a similar fate. Coming 12th in their semi-final, the song was let down by unambitious visuals that failed to resonate. In a field saturated with spectacle, competent-but-unremarkable is often a death sentence.

When the stage itself fails the performers

Not all problems stem from the performances. Sometimes, it’s the very design of the stage that works against the artist.

Most famously, the Kinetic Sun was a central stage prop for Eurovision 2022 in Turin. Designed by Francesca Montinaro, it was meant to be a mechanical structure featuring rotating LED panels and reflective “sun rays.” Dynamic and adaptable, with the LED side facing the audience for some performances and the reflective side used for others, enhancing visual storytelling. The rotating mechanism malfunctioned early in rehearsals and couldn’t be reliably fixed. Delegations were told it would remain static, with the non-LED reflective side permanently facing the audience. This limited how lighting, projections, and overall stage plans could be realised.

Delegations who had built their staging around the kinetic movement or the LED side were forced to redesign their performances last-minute. Malta, Ireland, Poland, and others reportedly struggled most with the visual compromise. Some entries appeared visually bland or incoherent because key elements were missing or blocked. The Kinetic Sun is now seen as a cautionary tale: when ambitious design goes wrong, the whole show can suffer.

Sweden’s controversial 2024 stage—a cross-shaped platform with sharp angles and protrusions—drew criticism for being impractical and visually awkward.

Multiple delegations were said to have struggled with the space. Artists sometimes failed to find their marks. Camera operators were forced into wide angles that made performances look sparse and distant.

When it works: staging that elevates

It would be unfair to suggest all spectacle is bad. On that same cross-shaped stage, Ukraine’s 2024 entry, directed by pop visionary Tanu Muiño, featured singer Jerry Heil rising into the air mid-performance, echoing the famous Mother Ukraine statue that watches over Kyiv. It was breathtaking, purposeful, and in perfect harmony with the song’s themes of national resilience and female empowerment.

Similarly, Ireland’s Bambie Thug delivered a sixth-place finish in 2024 thanks to bold, boundary-pushing staging that amplified the song’s raw intensity. Their creative director, Sergio Jaen, has since been recruited to stage Austria’s 2025 performance.

Looking further back, under-appreciated staging triumphs include Carl Espen’s “Silent Storm” (Norway 2014), which expertly employed Eurovision clichés – violins, spotlight, wind machine, smoke, man on a piano – to create a “stunning package” that landed in the top 10. Croatia’s Albina delivered a “spectacular” futuristic light show in 2021 that echoed Benjamin Ingrosso’s laser wall from 2018 but added the visual surprise of “five Albinas” through clever camera multiplication.

These moments prove that staging can still be transformative when used with care and clarity. When visual ideas emerge from the song itself, rather than being imposed upon it, magic happens.

The cost of spectacle

But staging at this level comes at a price. Eurovision 2025 in Basel reportedly cost around 60 million Swiss francs. A quarter of that budget was spent on the staging alone. That might be manageable for powerhouse broadcasters, but it creates a profound disparity across the field.

Broadcasters from smaller nations are left scrambling. Countries like Bulgaria and North Macedonia have withdrawn in recent years citing financial constraints. And it’s not just about how much it costs to enter, it comes down in part to the need to compete with deeper pockets on stage.

Eurovision Director Martin Green acknowledged the Swiss strain: “We’ve got two issues going on here—a relatively expensive country and a cost-of-living crisis.” While effects are reportedly provided to delegations at cost, the financial barrier is still too high for many.

Green did emphasise that the EBU provides special effects “at cost” to broadcasters rather than for profit-making purposes. Nevertheless, the financial reality limits creative possibilities for many participants and creates an uneven playing field.

A fanbase growing restless

In the fan forums and comment sections where Eurovision discourse thrives, frustration is mounting. Viewers talk about “staging fatigue,” about being overwhelmed by gimmicks, lights, and soulless grandeur. There’s growing nostalgia for a simpler Eurovision—where storytelling, voice, and charm mattered more than spectacle.

Germany’s 2024 director Dan Shipton expressed dissatisfaction with ISAAK’s performance, feeling it “lacked authenticity” despite the technical elements.

The backlash isn’t against creativity. It’s against excess. Reddit threads from 2024 and 2025 include dozens of complaints about empty staging, oversized sets, and design choices that alienate the camera. Even fans defending the staging acknowledge a shift: bigger is no longer automatically better.

What comes next?

As Eurovision approaches its 70th anniversary in 2026, it faces a dilemma. The show must evolve—but in what direction? The contest’s most beloved moments, from Salvador Sobral’s bare performance in 2017 to Duncan Laurence’s low-key intimacy in 2019, weren’t built on spectacle. Måneskin won for Italy with a show that captured the energy of their band and charismatic lead singer rather than a bells and whistles staging concept. All three performances were built on sincerity.

There’s no denying the power of great staging. It can elevate, enhance, and mesmerise. But when it becomes the main event—when visual noise drowns out musical soul—something is lost.

Eurovision doesn’t need to scale back entirely. But it needs to recalibrate. Let staging serve the story again. Let it frame the song, not fight for attention. Let authenticity be the special effect.

Because when the LED walls go dark and the streamers settle on the stage floor, it’s not the projections or platforms we remember. It’s the people. The voices. The moments that felt real.

And those moments, not the smoke machines, are what keep us watching.

Do feel free to comment below and tell me I’m wrong. I’m very rarely right 🙂