Australia will participate in the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest. This is a ‘one off’ event as part of the the 60th anniversary celebrations of the contest. It also fits in to the Eurovision theme this year of Building Bridges.
The broadcaster will be SBS and Australia will go straight to the final on 23 May in Vienna and will also be eligible to vote in both of the semi-finals. For many years now there has much much excitement and support from Australia for Eurovision. It will be a great occasion for them to join Europe in this massive event.
It has yet to be decided how Australia will select their song. SBS will provide more information soon.
In 2014 Australia played a significant part in one of the Eurovision semi-final interval act with an Oz theme. Jessica Mauboy performed Sea Of Flags to an excited audience.
Australia’s participation brings the amount of countries taking part to 40 in 2015.
Source: www.eurovision.tv
I have seen such a variety of reactions to this. If it truly is just a once off, it is great. But maybe in future they can also have a guest country each year by region, so 2015 is OCEANIA’s turn with AUSTRALIA, maybe 2016 is ASIA with say SOUTH KOREA and then in 2017 AFRICA and it could be SOUTH AFRICA, then to 2018 and NORTH AMERICA with Canada getting a turn.Bridges have to be built in all directions and now it looks like AUSTRALIA gets preferential treatment – first MALMO, then COPENHAGEN and now VIENNA.
Well they say it’s a one off, but why then participating? What if they win? The whole thing doesn’t make sense, even if it’s the 60th anniversary ….
If Australia was to win, which I suspect will be highly unlikely (and not because of a lack of talent), it would be a lovely return gesture of SBS to co-host in a country that has never hosted before …. Malta or Portugal or Macedonia or Poland.