On the evening of May 16, Channel One broadcasted the Eurovision: Europe Shine a Light music show, which this year replaced the finale of a traditional song contest. The concert was hosted by artists from the Netherlands: singer Edsilia Rombley, actress Chantal Janzen, as well as singer and showman Jan Smith. Yana Churikova and Yuri Aksyuta commented on the Russian broadcast.

The program of the show included short fragments of performances and clips of 2020 contestants from 41 countries sent to the organizers earlier. The musicians who are at home, including Little Big (Russia), VAL (Belarus), Hooverphonic (Belgium), Go_A (Ukraine), Arilena Ara (Albania) and many others, connected to the broadcast and addressed the audience with words of support .

Also, the contestants of past years became participants in the concert. The show was opened by the performance of Irish musician Johnny Logan, who was the only twice to win the Eurovision Song Contest - in 1980 and 1987. He told how he feels on self-isolation, and performed the hit What's Another Year, which brought him his first victory.

The winner of the 2015 competition, Mons Selmerlev, presented the acoustic version of his song Heroes, dedicating his presentation to doctors who help patients with coronavirus.

A prominent element in the broadcast was the video, which shows the most famous sights located in the countries participating in the 2020 competition. All the shots were shot recently, and the video was accompanied by the performance of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, all of which artists played at home.

Israeli Gali Atari, who won the 1979 contest with the collective Milk & Honey, walked through the deserted streets of Jerusalem and performed the song Hallelujah.

The deserted streets of the capital of their homeland showed another Eurovision winner - Serbian singer Maria Sherifovich, who recorded a new video for the song "Prayer".

  • © eurovision.tv

One of the founders of the Swedish ABBA quartet, Bjorn Ulveus, also joined the broadcast. He shared his memories of the 1974 show, which was won by the legendary four with the song Waterloo, and noted that the contest was an excellent launching pad for the team.

Also among the participants in the broadcast were musicians Michael Schulte, Neta Barzilai, Duncan Lawrence, Alexander Rybak, Lenny Cur, Sandra Kim, Niv Cavana, Getty Caspers (Teach-In), Sergey Lazarev, Elena Paparizu, Conchita Wurst and many others.

The concert ended with the song Love Shine a Light, which in 1997 brought victory to the British band Katrina and the Waves. This time it was performed by all the musicians selected to participate in the 2020 competition.

At the end of the show, the presenters said that the next Eurovision will be held in Rotterdam in 2021. The full list of contestants is still unknown, but some countries have already announced a decision to send to the Eurovision Song Contest 2021 musicians selected to participate in the 2020 show. In this case, according to the requirements of the organizers, artists will be required to submit new songs.

  • © eurovision.tv

The Eurovision music contest was first held in 1956 in the Swiss city of Lugano. The competition was attended by representatives of seven countries. Since then, the show has been held annually and over time has become a traditional phenomenon in the field of European music.

In 2020, the competition was first canceled by decision of the European Broadcasting Union. Such an unprecedented measure was taken due to the pandemic of the coronavirus infection COVID-19. The organizers were looking for alternative ways of holding the event and eventually planned an online concert with the participation of musicians selected for the 2020 contest.

Like the traditional competition, the concert consisted of three parts: on May 12 the numbers of the contestants of the first semi-final were presented, and on May 14 - the performances of the other participants.

The broadcast of the first two stages was held on the official Eurovision YouTube channel. The clips and concert performances of the participants provided to the organizers earlier were shown on the air. In addition, the program of the show included excerpts from the performances of the contestants who performed their compositions in other genres, clips from the audience, and much more.