It’s Eurovision 2025 week! Where is the contest taking place?
The 69th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest is to be staged at the 12,000-capacity St Jakobshalle in Basle after Switzerland won the right to host with last year’s victory by Nemo with No Code. There will be two semi-finals on Tuesday and Thursday at 8pm, with the grand final on Saturday at 8pm. The semi-finals will be broadcast on RTÉ2 and the final on RTÉ One.
Who is representing Ireland at Eurovision 2025?
Ireland’s Eurovision hopes have been entrusted to 24-year-old Norwegian singer Emmy Kristiansen, who will perform the song Laika Party – co-written with Russian-born, Westmeath-based Larissa Tormey.
Emmy is from a village in the south of Norway. In 2021, she reached Norway’s Eurovision national finals with Witch Wood. In 2023, she was on the jury that selected Norway’s representative in the competition. In Basle, she will be joined by her brother Erlend, who will maintain a deadpan pose while playing keyboards.
Tell me more about the song.
Emmy came up with the concept of Laika Party at a songwriting camp in Norway. A few days previously, she and her family had been having a quiz night, and one of the questions had to do with Laika, the space dog notoriously blasted into high orbit aboard Sputnik 2 by the Soviet Union in 1957, where she was left to a horrible fate, confused and alone – perhaps like Ireland’s Wild Youth at Eurovision 2023?
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It isn’t the first time Laika has been eulogised in song – the tragic pooch is referenced in the Arcade Fire track Neighbourhood 2 (Laika). “It’s a great story about a dog being the first living creature in space,” the band’s singer, Win Butler, explained. “Doing this spectacular thing, but not having food and watching itself fall back into the earth.”
So, do we like this song?
Laika Party has its fans – but it has also proved controversial, with some Eurovision commentators struck by the contrast between the upbeat synth melody and the downbeat subject. Emmy says that this is the point: the real Laika suffered a lonely death. In Laika Party, she set out to rewrite history and give the interstellar dog a happy ending. As she sings: “I hope Laika never died and that she spins around us still/ And that she has a party in the air and always will.”
Why is a Norwegian singing about a dead Soviet space dog representing Ireland in Switzerland?
There is a rich history of singers representing other countries at Eurovision. Katrina Leskanich of Katrina and the Waves did so for the UK in 1997, while in 2021, rapper Flo Rida featured on the San Marino entry. If new to Ireland, it is a long-standing Eurovision tradition.
What about the staging?
At Eurovision, appearance counts as much as the song – one reason Macroom’s Bambie Thug did so well in 2024 was because of their visually stunning “Crown the Witch” staging of Doomsday Blue. It was impressive, even with the sound turned down. In the case of Laika Party, Emmy is leaning into the science fiction aspect and will perform atop a platform, drenched in purple neon lighting and with a back projection of a twinkling starfield. However, there has been some tweaking following dress rehearsals.
“We have made some changes after the first rehearsal. In the first rehearsal, I saw the props and the stage for the first time, and that was very big,” Emmy said.
“We had to change a bit of the choreography and my placement on stage because of that and also, I had some rails on the rocket, because I’m standing on top, but the team didn’t think it looked that great on camera so we now removed the rails.”
When is Emmy performing?
Ireland has been drawn in Thursday night’s second semi-final. Emmy is third in the running order between Montenegro and Latvia. The early start is regarded as putting her at a disadvantage, as statistically, songs that appear later in the broadcast tend to fare better.
How will the song do?
Ten of Thursday’s 16 entrants will go on to the grand final after a public vote, and Emmy is expected to make the cut. But she is seen as an outsider for the contest proper – with odds at 66/1. On Saturday, the successful semi-finalists are joined by the “big five” who are guaranteed a place in the final due to their financial contribution to Eurovision: Spain, France, Germany, the UK and Italy.
Any clue who will win?
Sweden is determined to eclipse Ireland’s seven Eurovision wins and become the only nation with eight victories. To that end, Sweden’s “comedy” pop trio KAJ are favourites in 2025, with their song Bara Bada Bastu having odds of 5/4. Others regarded as in the running are Austria (9/4), France (9/1) and Israel (12/1).
Wasn’t there controversy about the Israeli entry?
The continued participation of the country is regarded as controversial by many. The country is represented by Yuval Raphael, a 24-year-old singer and survivor of the mass killing by Hamas of attendees at the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. RTÉ has called on Eurovision organisers, the European Broadcast Union (EBU), to discuss Israel’s participation. In an open letter to the EBU, 72 musicians associated with Eurovision demanded the exclusion from the contest of Israeli national broadcaster Kan, which, they said, was “complicit in Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza and the decades-long regime of apartheid and military occupation against the entire Palestinian people”. Signatories included 1994 Ireland winner Charlie McGettigan.
Will the controversy around Israel affect the contest?
There were several flashpoints around Israel and Gaza at last year’s contest: Bambie Thug, for instance, was asked to remove Ogham script saying, “Ceasefire” and “Freedom for Palestine”. This year, the EBU has changed the rules so that participants can only fly their national flag on camera. However, audience members will all be able to wave Palestinian flags. The EBU is also stepping up backstage protection of artists by creating “no filming zones”.
How does voting work?
The semi-finals are decided based on a public vote. Participating countries will vote in the semi-final their country is in, though they cannot vote for their own representative. You can vote over the phone, by text or through the Eurovision app. For the final, the public vote will account for 50 per cent of marks, with the other half adjudicated by national panels. The experts’ scores are based on the Friday night jury final performances, which take place behind closed doors.
