When Eurovision kicks off tonight in Liverpool it'll be the ninth time the UK has hosted the competition. These days they like to shift the venue round the country, and rightly so, but on four early occasions the stage was set somewhere in London. Only Dublin has hosted the contest more often.
Top hosting countries 9:United Kingdom 7: Ireland 6: Sweden 5: Netherlands
Top hosting cities 6: Dublin 5: 4:London, Luxembourg City 3: Stockholm, Copenhagen
So let's visit London's four Eurovision venues, two of which are still concert halls and the other two of which are now flats.
Why was the contest held in the UK? The Netherlands had hosted in 1958, then won in 1959 and didn't want to host again because of the expense. The UK came had come second (thanks to Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson's "Sing Little Birdie") so stepped in as host. How long had the venue been open? 9 years What was the date? Tuesday 29th March 1960 Who was the presenter? Katie Boyle Who won? France, represented by Jacqueline Boyer singing "Tom Pillibi" Where did we come? Bryan Johnson came 2nd with "Looking High, High, High" Is the venue still standing? Absolutely
The Royal Festival Hall is one of the country's best loved buildings, assuming you appreciate postwar reinforced concrete modernism. It dominates the South Bank with its split-level promenades, although these weren't present in 1960 when the building existed in a purer form unadorned by alternative entrances. The auditorium is suspended in the middle of the building to help muffle vibration from passing trains, and it turned out the acoustics aren't great but that tends to affect classical orchestras more than continental chanteuses.
The RFH was always designed to be inclusive so you can still wander in and tour the foyers, grab a seat with a coffee, enjoy the Festival of Britain mini-exhibition, explore the upper levels and balconies, even find a quiet corner, kneel down and stroke the carpet if that's your thing. That said I was disappointed to go in yesterday and find all the staircases sealed off and the higher floors inaccessible. Even the amazing singing lift wouldn't let you out above the second floor, it just rose up to the sixth, halted beside a rope and waited for you to press '2' to go back down again.
They could never bring the contest back to the Royal Festival Hall, it's too small and much too inflexible, but how wonderful that it was ever held here in the first place.
Why was the contest held in the UK? France had hosted in 1959 and 1961, then won in 1962 and didn't want to host again because of the expense. The BBC kindly agreed to step in, again, by hosting the contest at Television Centre. How long had the venue been open? 3 years What was the date? Saturday 23rd March 1963 Who was the presenter? Katie Boyle again Who won? Denmark, represented by Grethe and Jørgen Ingmann singing "Dansevise" Where did we come? Ronnie Carroll came 4th with "Say Wonderful Things" Is the venue still standing? Half and half
Another contest, another new building to showcase.
The BBC saved some dosh by hosting the show in their own studios at White City, a question-mark shaped swirl famously designed on the back of an envelope. But Television Centre didn't have a single space large enough to hold everything, so instead the performers and the orchestras performed in Studio 4 while Katie Boyle, the audience and the scoreboard were nextdoor in Studio 3. It worked just fine on TV but must have been awkwardly impractical in the flesh. TVC would continue to host groundbreaking television shows for another 50 years, almost to the week, until in 2013 the BBC moved out and let the developers in instead.
What's good about the redevelopment is that you can still walk right into the heart of the complex unchallenged, circle the fountain like a record-breaking tap dancer and stare up at Helios on his pillar. What's less good is that Studio 4 is now an arc of lifestyle apartments plus a private garden, so if you want to stand where Nana Mouskouri performed or where all Blue Peter's shenanigans took place you need to be a resident. Studio 3 thankfully remains as a production space, so at least Katie Boyle's half survives, although these days it's ITV's daytime roster that comes to you live from TC3.
Why was the contest held in the UK? Sandie Shaw had been the runaway victor the previous year with "Puppet on a String". How long had the venue been open? 97 years What was the date? Saturday 6th April 1968 Who was the presenter? Katie Boyle again again Who won? Spain, represented by Massiel singing "La, la, la" Where did we come? Cliff Richard came 2nd (by just one point) with "Congratulations" Is the venue still standing? Totally
In an era before mega-arenas the Royal Albert Hall was the obvious place to stage a song contest with a 5000+-strong audience.
It had originally been intended to call the building the Central Hall of Arts and Sciences, at least until Queen Victoria insisted it was named after her late husband instead. On opening night in 1871 a terrible echo afflicted the performances, and it took until 1969 to sort out the acoustics with those giant mushrooms in the roof. This was alas a year too late to aid the song contest, but on the positive side this was the very first Eurovision to be broadcast in colour. The hall isn't quite circular, more elliptical, with 12 entrances arrayed round the edge like the numbers on the clock (but a clock reflected and inverted so heaven knows what they were thinking there).
The hall currently has scaffolding across its roof so doesn't quite look its best, but that wasn't stopping tourists lining up on the Jubilee Steps for a carefully-framed selfie. You can even go inside if you like, but only through door 12 and only as far as the box office, gift shop, cafe and restaurant. Afternoon tea is supposedly the daytime enticement, but without anything as welcoming as a menu or smiling door staff to encourage you to step within. Tonight sees a concert by a variety of London youth choirs, then on Friday it's Al Murray and later in the month Katie Melua, Verdi's Requiem and Sparks. Even Cliff Richard pops back from time to time but you had to be here in 1968 for his signature Congratulations.
Why was the contest held in the UK? Brotherhood of Man had won the previous year in The Hague with "Save Your Kisses for Me". How long had the venue been open? just 3 months What was the date? Saturday 7th May 1977 Who was the presenter? Angela Rippon Who won? France, represented by Marie Myriam singing "L'Oiseau et l'Enfant" Where did we come? Lynsey de Paul and Mike Moran came 2nd with "Rock Bottom" Is the venue still standing? Very much not
London's last Eurovision venue was a very Seventies conference centre on the western edge of Wembley Park. It looked so futuristic they filmed an episode of Blake's Seven here, and it must have worked on a practical level because the BBC's next choice of UK venue would be another conference centre. Wembley Conference Centre would also host the very first Brit Awards, the first National Television Awards and many consecutive years of Masters Snooker. But by the turn of the century it had become a building mostly surplus to requirements, and in 2006 it was demolished as part of the wave spreading out from the rebuilt Wembley Stadium and replaced by a block of flats.
The conference centre stood on a site facing Empire Way, tightly sandwiched between Stadium Way and Lakeside Way. Go back a century to the Empire Exhibition and this was the location of the Malaya pavilion, just west of Australia and just south of New Zealand. It's now a grey residential fortress called Quadrant Court, a foreunner of the subsequent glitzier stacks built closer to the stadium, and at ground level incorporates a gym and a small Tesco Express. But its footprint is a unbroken quadrilateral whereas the footprint of the conference centre was mostly circular, so the key performance area now lies unseen somewhere within the central courtyard. There is nothing here to make a pilgrimage to...
...except perhaps the London Designer Outlet which nibbles into the southeast corner. Not the main avenue with the trainer shops and the cinema, but the piazza with the escalators where Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger sit atop the M&S Outlet Store. I strode into the latter and poked around the shirts and underwear, then made a special effort to walk into homewares in the far corner where I tried to imagine what it must have been like here when Angela Rippon ruled the roost. I've been to performances at London's three other Eurovision venues, I've even performed on stage at two of them, but Wembley Conference Centre remains the one that got away.
Other UK hosts 1972: Edinburgh (Usher Hall) 1974: Brighton (Brighton Dome) 1982: Harrogate (Harrogate Conference Centre) 1998: Birmingham (National Indoor Arena) 2023: Liverpool (Liverpool Arena)
