The Eurovision Song Contest 2025 is set to be the 69th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It is scheduled to take place in Basel, Switzerland, following the country’s victory at the 2024 contest with the song “The Code” by Nemo.
Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR), the contest will be held at St. Jakobshalle, and will consist of two semi-finals on 13 and 15 May, and a final on 17 May 2025.
It will be the third time that Switzerland has hosted the contest, having previously done so for the inaugural contest in 1956 and the 1989 contest, held in Lugano and Lausanne respectively.
The selected venue for the contest is the 12,400-seat St. Jakobshalle, which serves as a venue for indoor sports and concert events. The arena is located at the borders of Basel, adjacent to the neighbouring municipality of Münchenstein.
Who might be taking part
The deadline for broadcasters to apply for participation was September 15, 2024, with a grace period for withdrawal without penalty until October 11, 2024.
Switzerland is fairly obviously going to be entering a song and because of how the rules work, they’re automatically in the Grand Final along with the ‘big five’ broadcasters – France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.
Beyond that there’s been mumbles and mutters across various fan sites suggesting The Netherlands might sit it out (because of this) and we won’t see songs from Slovakia, Bosnia or Andorra. North Macedonia and Bulgaria have stayed quiet and will probably not return in 2025. We will however have the pleasure of welcoming that Eurovision stalwart Montenegro back into the fold – for however long it takes until they throw their next hissy and sit it out ‘for budgetary reasons’.
And you’ll hear differing accounts from every angle, but we’re sticking our 25+ year-old necks out and saying Kosovo won’t be making their debut in Switzerland. They have asked, but the EBU said no, citing ‘management changes’ at the broadcaster as one of their reasons, plus ‘stuff’.
Eligibility for participation in the Eurovision Song Contest requires a national broadcaster with an active EBU membership capable of receiving the contest via the Eurovision network and broadcasting it live nationwide. The EBU issues invitations to participate in the contest to all members.
Tickets
Obviously you’ll be keen to know when to avoid Eurovision socials for moans about the Ticketmaster website not being up to the job, but we’re unable to give you anything yet about tickets for the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest. As soon as that changes, we’ll update this page.