分类： entertainment

Seventy years after its founding as a unifying celebration of cross-continental music, the Eurovision Song Contest is confronting the most severe crisis in its history, as deep divisions over Israel’s participation in the 2026 Vienna-hosted event have sparked an unprecedented boycott by five major European public broadcasters. The roots of this year’s upheaval stretch back to the 2025 Eurovision final held in Basel, Switzerland, where geopolitical tensions boiled over long before the final winner was announced.

Anti-Israel protests, organized in opposition to Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza that began in October 2023, surrounded the 2025 contest venue. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered, bearing Palestinian flags and covering their bodies in fake blood to symbolize civilian casualties in Gaza, which the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry puts at more than 72,000. The unrest spilled into the arena during the final, when two protesters attempted to storm the stage during Israeli contestant Yuval Raphael’s performance, throwing paint that accidentally struck a Eurovision crew member. As the final vote counts rolled in, the atmosphere in the venue reached a fever pitch of tension: audience members chanted for second-place contender Austria, with many openly praying Israel would not secure enough points to win the right to host 2026’s event. When Austria ultimately claimed the top spot, UK Eurovision commentator Graham Norton joked that organizers were breathing a huge sigh of relief at avoiding a 2026 final in Tel Aviv.

Beneath the surface, the 2025 result sparked lasting controversy that set the stage for this year’s boycott. While Raphael earned only middling scores from competition judges, she won the public vote by a wide margin – a result that immediately drew scrutiny from multiple broadcasters. Critics pointed out that official Israeli government accounts, including that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had urged supporters to vote for Raphael the maximum 20 times per person, a practice allowed under contest rules. The implication was that the strong public showing reflected coordinated mass voting rather than organic popular support for Raphael’s entry.

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organizes the annual contest, launched an independent audit of the results, which confirmed there was no evidence that mass voting disproportionately skewed the final outcome. The EBU reaffirmed that the 2025 result was valid and robust, but that finding failed to ease growing discontent among member broadcasters. Calls for a broader review of the longstanding voting system grew, with many outlets arguing that the current framework no longer guaranteed a fair reflection of viewer opinion.

The 2025 near-win for Israel brought decades of simmering tensions over geopolitics’ role in Eurovision voting to a breaking point. This year, that tension has erupted into the biggest boycott in the contest’s 70-year history. While 35 countries are still set to participate in the 2026 contest, public broadcasters from Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Iceland and Slovenia have all withdrawn in opposition to Israel’s inclusion.

Boycotting outlets cite a range of overlapping reasons, most rooted in protest against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Many have explicitly accused the Israeli government of genocide, a charge Israel vehemently denies. While the boycotting broadcasters insist their decisions were made independently, most align with the official stances of their national governments – all of which have strongly criticized Israel’s actions in Gaza, and recently joined a failed push to suspend the European Union’s preferential trade relations with Israel.

This unprecedented action marks a sharp escalation from previous years, when only a handful of broadcasters raised public objections to Israel’s participation after the Gaza war began, with none withdrawing from the 2024 or 2025 contests. Israel’s Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar has dismissed the boycott as shameful and hypocritical, arguing that Eurovision should remain a celebration of music and cross-cultural connection, not a platform for political grandstanding.

Geopolitical influence is nothing new for Eurovision. For decades, politically aligned and neighboring nations have consistently exchanged higher public votes, and contest historian Dr. Dean Vuletic, author of *Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest*, notes that entry to the contest has long been used as a political tool. Since the Cold War era, countries have used Eurovision participation to signal international legitimacy or geopolitical alignment, from Franco’s 1961 Spanish debut to non-aligned Yugoslavia’s early participation amid the Cold War divide.

Past conflicts have also spurred isolated withdrawals, but those were typically temporary and regionally contained: Greece boycotted in 1975 over Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus, Armenia skipped the 2012 contest hosted by Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh tensions, and Lebanon withdrew ahead of its 2005 debut rather than comply with EBU rules requiring it to broadcast all entries, including Israel’s. The only time Morocco participated, in 1980, it was the one year Israel did not compete, a connection widely accepted as the reason for its one-off appearance. This year’s boycott, however, is broader and more foundational, challenging the EBU’s core ability to keep geopolitics from overwhelming the competition.

For boycotting broadcasters, the core issue is that the presence of a country actively at war undermines the integrity of the contest as a purely musical competition. Natalija Gorščak, president of the management board of Slovenia’s withdrawing broadcaster RTV, explained that widespread public protest from Eurovision fans over sharing a stage with Israel pushed her organization to take an ethical stand for peace. Gorščak argues that even though Raphael, an Israeli survivor of the October 7 Hamas attack on the Nova music festival who performed with shrapnel still in her leg, met all EBU rules requiring entries to be non-political, her participation was inherently symbolic and political.

The 2022 Russian expulsion from Eurovision following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and Ukraine’s subsequent victory that same year, has also amplified calls for rule change. The EBU ruled that a Russian entry would bring the contest into disrepute, and Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra went on to win the 2022 contest, thanks in part to a wave of politically motivated public solidarity voting. Critics, including Gorščak, argue this set a precedent that questions the fairness of the contest: political solidarity voting overwhelmingly benefits entries from countries involved in active conflict, sidelining performers from other nations regardless of the quality of their music.

Critics of the status quo now argue that the EBU’s longstanding rule, which allows any EBU member broadcaster to field an entry regardless of whether their country is at war, needs urgent reform. “When there is political conflict we should really think how the representative from the aggressor’s part and from the victim’s part should be involved and how they could be involved,” Gorščak said. “This is the debate I think we need to have within Eurovision.” Spain’s public broadcaster chair José Pablo López echoed that call at a parliamentary hearing earlier this year, urging a full overhaul of EBU statutes to bar countries in active conflict from participating. A senior official from a non-boycotting broadcaster acknowledged the widespread frustration, admitting that “a country from a conflict creates a bigger one for the contest” and that current rules do not create an equal playing field for all participants.

Opponents of a rule change and the boycott argue that barring Israel (or any nation) from participation violates Eurovision’s core founding values of unity and inclusivity. Dana International, who won Eurovision for Israel in 1998, argued online that “you don’t punish an entire country because you disagree politically with its government… Announcing a withdrawal from Eurovision harms the very idea of peace, harms Israel, and harms the contest itself.” Israeli public broadcaster Kan, which holds Israel’s EBU membership, has repeatedly affirmed it has not broken any contest rules, and argues that disqualifying it would undermine the core values the EBU claims to uphold. Notably, the EBU itself has previously defended Kan from sustained political attacks by the current Israeli government, which has threatened the public broadcaster’s independence and existence amid proposed broadcast reforms.

In response to growing criticism, the EBU has made minor adjustments to rules for 2026, cutting the maximum number of votes per viewer from 20 to 10 and introducing new guidelines discouraging disproportionate promotion by third parties including government agencies. Even so, the EBU issued a formal warning to Kan just ahead of the 2026 contest after current Israeli representative Noam Bettan published social media posts instructing followers to “vote 10 times for Israel,” a move organizers said violated the spirit of the competition. Kan complied with a request to remove the content.

As final preparations wrap up for the 70th Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna, the event remains mired in political controversy rather than being able to focus on the music, performance and spectacle that define the annual competition. Insiders report that this year it has been harder than ever to recruit participating artists, many of whom worry about reputational damage amid the growing partisan divide over the event. Petitions and protests continue to surround the contest, even as organizers reaffirm their commitment to their founding mission of providing a platform for peace and unity in a divided world.

Looking ahead, the central question facing Eurovision remains: can the 70-year-old competition adapt to a more divided geopolitical landscape, or will it be permanently redefined as a forum for political expression, rather than the celebration of music it was founded to be?

Decades after The Beatles reshaped global popular music, a highly anticipated new television drama exploring the band’s little-known formative years has entered production, with filming locations spanning two countries that shaped their earliest identity. Titled *Hamburg Days*, the six-part BBC One project centers on the era between 1960 and 1962, when the fledgling rock group played more than 250 chaotic, career-building shows in Hamburg, Germany’s bustling port city.

Unlike later Beatles content that focuses on the band’s legendary 1960s global superstardom, *Hamburg Days* spotlights the original lineup that many casual fans do not know well: it includes bassist Stuart Sutcliffe and drummer Pete Best, alongside young founding members John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison. The story draws its core inspiration from the memoirs of Klaus Voormann, a German artist and musician who collaborated closely with the band in later years — most famously designing the iconic cover art for their 1966 *Revolver* album, and even stepping in to play bass on select Beatles recordings.

The co-production between British and German entertainment firms will split filming between multiple key locations: Liverpool (the band’s lifelong hometown in northwest England), the northern German port of Hamburg, and Munich in southern Germany. Producers have framed the series as an intimate origin story, tracing how the young, scrappy group of British teenagers met Voormann and pioneering photographer Astrid Kirchherr — connections that would spark the artistic transformation that turned them into what would become the most influential music phenomenon in modern history.

Kirchherr, who passed away in 2020 at the age of 81, is widely credited with shaping The Beatles’ signature early visual identity, including the iconic mop-top hairstyle that became one of their most recognizable trademarks. She was also engaged to Sutcliffe, who left the band to pursue fine arts studies in Hamburg, only to die from a brain hemorrhage at just 21 years old in 1962, a devastating loss that left a lasting mark on the remaining band members. For his part, Best — who was famously ousted from the band by manager Brian Epstein in 1962, replaced by Ringo Starr — has previously spoken publicly about his shock at the abrupt dismissal, a moment the drama is expected to address with nuance.

The project boasts an acclaimed creative team. The script is penned by Wirral-born writer Jamie Carragher, who previously contributed to the award-winning HBO hit series *Succession*, while directing duties are split between Christian Schwochow, a veteran of Netflix’s *The Crown*, and German filmmaker Laura Lackmann. The newly announced cast features rising young performers: Rhys Mannion will lead as John Lennon, with Ellis Murphy as Paul McCartney, Harvey Brett as George Harrison, Louis Landau as Stuart Sutcliffe, and Patrick Gilmore as Pete Best. German actors round out the key creative roles, with Luna Jane portraying Astrid Kirchherr, Laura Tonke playing her mother Nielsa, and Casper von Bülow taking on the role of Klaus Voormann.

Cast members joined local officials from both Liverpool and Hamburg for a public event over the weekend, appearing at the opening of a new exhibition of never-before-seen Beatles letters in Hamburg. The gathering included Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram, who was in Hamburg for an official trade mission, and Hamburg state secretary Christoph Holstein.

*Hamburg Days* is not the only major Beatles biographical project currently in production: acclaimed director Sam Mendes is also working on a four-part feature film series about the band, which is on track to release in 2028, with a star-studded cast including Harris Dickinson as Lennon, Paul Mescal as McCartney, Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr, and Joseph Quinn as Harrison. For Liverpool, the arrival of the new drama cements the region’s growing status as a major UK production hub: in recent months, Merseyside has hosted more on-location shoots than any other UK region outside of London, with projects including *This City is Ours*, *The Cage*, and the iconic gangster series *Peaky Blinders* all filming there.

For 12 consecutive days starting this Tuesday, the global film industry will turn its full attention to the sun-drenched shores of the French Riviera, where the annual Cannes Film Festival – one of the most prestigious and influential cinematic showcases on the planet – opens its doors to premieres, red-carpet galas, and the unveiling of what could be the next crop of award-winning hit films.

Now in its 78-plus year of operation, the festival has long held a unique reputation as both a world-class platform for groundbreaking cinema and a glamorous cultural spectacle that draws A-list talent, top directors, and film lovers from every corner of the globe. History shows that a premiere launch at Cannes often paves the road to Oscar success: recent Palme d’Or contenders and winners including *Parasite* and *Anora* have gone on to take home the Academy Award for Best Picture, and last year’s Cannes lineup featured multiple eventual Oscar nominees such as *Sentimental Value*, *The Secret Agent*, and *It Was Just an Accident*. This year’s 12-day event is expected to produce similarly future award contenders, though major Hollywood studios will largely stay on the sidelines for 2025.

Leading this year’s jury, tasked with awarding the festival’s top honor the Palme d’Or, is celebrated South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook. The opening ceremony will also kick off a series of honorary Palme d’Or recognitions, with legendary New Zealand director Peter Jackson receiving the first honor this year, followed by iconic entertainer Barbra Streisand at a later date. Beyond the official festival screenings, pop culture fans have an extra point of interest: HBO’s hit series *The White Lotus* is currently filming its fourth season on the Croisette, Cannes’ iconic waterfront promenade, bringing a dose of small-screen star power to the city.

This year’s official lineup leans heavily into work from world-renowned auteur directors, with highly anticipated features spanning genres, languages, and storytelling styles. One of the buzziest entries is Na Hong-jin’s long-in-development sci-fi thriller *Hope*, a genre-bending project that festival artistic director Thierry Fremaux says constantly shifts creative directions. The film features a cross-cultural cast mixing top Korean talent Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, and Jung Ho-yeon with Hollywood stars Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, and Taylor Russell, and many industry observers predict it could mark Na’s global breakthrough.

Another high-profile American addition is James Gray’s *Paper Tiger*, a Queens-set crime drama that was a late addition to the competition slate. Starring A-list leads Adam Driver, Miles Teller, and Scarlett Johansson, the film centers on two brothers who get tangled up with the Russian mafia, and it has quickly become one of the most anticipated American films of this year’s festival. Romanian master Cristian Mungiu, a former Palme d’Or winner for *4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days*, returns to competition with *Fjord*, starring Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve as a Romanian-Norwegian couple who relocate to the wife’s isolated rural hometown in Norway.

In the Un Certain Regard sidebar, Jane Schoenbrun – one of the most talked-about new voices in contemporary American independent cinema – presents *Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma*, a slasher-movie-set story starring Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson. Polish auteur Pawel Pawlikowski, famous for his stripped-back, black-and-white period dramas *Ida* and *Cold War*, debuts his third feature in this creative vein: *Fatherland*, which follows German author Thomas Mann on a post-World War II road trip, starring Hanns Zischler in the lead role alongside Sandra Hüller as his daughter.

Japanese master Ryusuke Hamaguchi, who made history with the Oscar-nominated *Drive My Car*, makes his French-language debut with *All of a Sudden*, a thoughtful drama starring Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto centered on a nursing home director and a terminally ill Japanese playwright. Fellow beloved Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda – a former Palme d’Or winner for *Shoplifters*, celebrated for his gentle, empathetic storytelling – ventures into sci-fi territory with *Sheep in the Box*, which follows a grieving couple who adopt an infant humanoid robot after losing their own son.

Ira Sachs’ *The Man I Love* was the only American film selected for competition before James Gray’s late addition, and it sees Rami Malek take on the lead role as an actor with a life-threatening illness in 1980s New York, preparing for what may be his final performance. French filmmaker Arthur Harari, who co-wrote 2023 Palme d’Or winner *Anatomy of a Fall*, steps into the director’s chair for competition with *The Unknown*, a body-swap drama starring Léa Seydoux about a photographer who wakes up in the body of a woman he followed after photographing her at a party. Acclaimed Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev, whose previous works *Leviathan* and *Loveless* earned Oscar nominations, returns to Cannes after a near-fatal illness during the COVID-19 pandemic with *Minotaur*, a drama about a business executive facing a personal crisis in rural Russia.

Among special screenings, Steven Soderbergh’s documentary *John Lennon: The Last Interview* has already drawn major headlines for its creative use of artificial intelligence to visualize John Lennon’s philosophical reflections, drawn from the final interview the Beatles icon gave at his New York home the Dakota shortly before his 1980 assassination. The film promises audiences an unprecedented intimate look at one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. Finally, Spanish auteur Pedro Almodovar, a longtime Cannes favorite, debuts his deeply personal new melodrama *Bitter Christmas*, a multi-layered story exploring filmmaking, grief, and aging that marks a return to Almodovar’s native Spanish language and Spanish setting after his recent English-language feature *The Room Next Door*.

When the highly anticipated second season of *Tucci in Italy* drops on Disney+ on May 12, viewers will be greeted by a recurring, warm motif that feels instantly familiar to anyone who has stepped foot in an Italian home: no matter how full Stanley Tucci insists he is, locals – from doting nonne to respected head chefs, and even whole family units – will pile more food onto his plate before he can finish his first helping.

This relentless hospitality echoes the experience of anyone who has grown up with or been welcomed into Italian culture, where food is never just sustenance. It is a language of affection, a core pillar of hospitality, and a fundamental part of personal and collective identity rolled into one shared experience.

In this new season, the celebrated actor, known for his role in *The Devil Wears Prada*, traverses the entire length and breadth of Italy – from the sunbaked shores of Sicily to the turquoise coasts of Sardinia, and all the way to the snow-dusted valleys of northern Italy. His journey goes far beyond tasting iconic dishes: he dives into centuries-old regional culinary traditions, meets tight-knit local communities, and steps into the small, family-run kitchens that are the beating heart of Italian food culture. Alongside sweeping shots of glistening fresh seafood, vibrant market produce, and one-of-a-kind local delicacies, Tucci weaves the story of a people whose social fabric is stitched together by family bonds and long-held ritual.

In an interview, Tucci highlighted that one of the most striking features of Italian culture is its profound regional diversity, a trait that is most visible on the dinner plate. “We think we know what Italy is, but it’s incredibly complex and diverse,” he explained. Unlike many other nations, most Italians draw stronger identity from their local city or region than from the country as a whole. “When you say to someone, ‘You’re from Italy’, they’ll say, ‘No, I’m from Tuscany’ or ‘I’m from Florence’, so they are very territorial, especially when it comes to food,” he said.

This strong local pride is on full display in an episode set in the Tuscan city of Siena, where Tucci explores the historic contrada system – centuries-old neighborhood districts that have maintained fiercely distinct identities for centuries. “They all believe their contrada is the greatest,” Tucci laughed, “and they express that in many ways, including food.”

The divides between regional cuisines are just as stark in northern Italy, where climate and geography have shaped ingredient availability and cooking styles that differ dramatically from the south. “You go up north and you might only find tomatoes in the summer and you’ll find the likes of goulash, polenta and buckwheat which you would never find in the south,” Tucci noted. This patchwork of culinary traditions shatters the common international misconception that Italian food can be reduced to “just pizza and pasta.” “It’s not,” he emphasized.

The 65-year-old host recalled every dish he sampled during filming with obvious affection. When asked to name the standout meal of the season, he immediately insisted “everything” was incredible, before singling out a handful of exceptional pasta dishes, including one prepared with multiple varieties of fresh mozzarella.

But beneath the celebration of food, Tucci also raises a pressing concern: modern society is steadily losing the ability to find joy and deep emotional connection in shared meals. Speaking to the shifting cultural attitudes around eating, amplified by the rising popularity of weight loss drugs, Tucci argued that society’s relationship with food has become “really messed up.” “We overthink it, and the idea of what we’re supposed to look like has messed up our relationship with food,” he said.

He added that modern culture increasingly pushes for uniformity across people, places, and food: “we want everything to look the same, taste the same and be generic.” Instead, Tucci argues that diversity and even imperfection – especially when it comes to produce and food – should be celebrated. “We should celebrate the tomato or the onion that comes out of the ground not looking perfect,” he said.

A self-described non-adherent to food fads and passing trends, Tucci pushed back against the modern view of food as nothing more than a tool to satiate hunger, erasing its deeper cultural and emotional meaning. “Our relationship with food now is it’s just something you eat to feed your belly, but that’s not what it is,” he said.

The conversation also turned to some of the most hotly debated culinary “crimes” against Italian cuisine, and Tucci had no shortage of firm opinions. Pineapple on pizza is an unambiguous no. Learning that some home cooks and restaurants prepare carbonara with cream, bacon, or cheddar cheese made him shudder (traditional carbonara only requires guanciale, pecorino romano, and egg yolk, after all). While breaking spaghetti in half before cooking is usually off the table, he acknowledged that some regional soups and dishes do call for broken pasta. As for post-dinner cappuccinos, ketchup on pasta, or parmesan cheese over seafood pasta? “Absolutely not,” he said.

*Tucci in Italy* Season 2 will be available exclusively for streaming on Disney+ starting May 12.

The 70th iteration of the Eurovision Song Contest is set to open its doors in Vienna this Sunday, kicking off with the iconic turquoise carpet parade that will bring together competitors from 35 participating nations. What should be a joyous celebration of cross-cultural music and unity, however, has been overshadowed by a bitter, years-long controversy over Israel’s inclusion in the competition, driven by ongoing fallout from the 2023 Gaza conflict.

As delegations assemble in the Austrian capital, five longstanding Eurovision participants will be notably absent: Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Spain have all pulled out of the 2026 contest in protest of Israel’s participation. The debate over Israel’s presence first ignited in October 2023, when the Israeli government launched a large-scale military offensive in Gaza in response to a Hamas-led attack that Israeli authorities report killed approximately 1,200 people and took 251 hostages. To date, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry puts the Palestinian death toll from the offensive at 72,628. A ceasefire has been in place since October 2025, but the political rift over Israel’s Eurovision participation has not healed.

Controversy has dogged Israel’s participation in the two most recent editions of the contest, held in Malmö 2024 and Basel 2025. During that time, mass anti-Israel protests filled host city streets, and Israeli contestants were assigned armed security detail for their protection. In 2025, Israeli entrant Yuval Raphael — a survivor of the October 7 attacks — told the BBC she had practiced performing through boos during rehearsals. Two stage invaders interrupted her performance during the grand final, and tensions boiled over after Raphael’s song unexpectedly placed first in the public vote, ultimately landing her second place overall after lower jury scores. Multiple countries alleged that the public vote was skewed by an unprecedented intervention from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, which repeatedly urged its social media followers to vote for Raphael’s entry.

Last November, a coalition of countries pushed for a formal vote to exclude Israel from the 2026 contest. When the motion failed, the boycotts began, including the withdrawal of Ireland — a seven-time Eurovision winner — and Spain, one of the competition’s largest financial backers.

For Eurovision, a cultural event uniquely dependent on its passionate global fan community, the boycott and ongoing controversy have left audiences deeply divided. Unlike most major entertainment events, Eurovision integrates independent fan media directly into official proceedings, granting fan websites and blogs equal access to press centres, press conferences, and behind-the-scenes content alongside legacy outlets like the BBC and The New York Times. Fan creators publish year-round content, from pre-selection show analysis to rehearsal leaks, voting predictions, and staging breakdowns, cementing their central role in the event’s ecosystem.

“The fan base is very important for the commercial dimension of Eurovision,” explained Dean Vuletic, historian and author of *Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest*. “When it comes to merchandising, when it comes to ticket sales, the fans are really the ones fuelling this Eurovision industry. They’re the ones you can count on to attend the contest, even when it becomes mired in political controversy.”

In response to the 2026 boycott, a number of prominent fan platforms have suspended all coverage of this year’s contest. “The Eurovision we once knew, that shaped this community and inspired us to create this channel, just isn’t the one we fell in love with all those years ago,” wrote the team behind cross-continental fan page Eurovision Hub. Ireland’s Eirevision podcast echoed that sentiment: “A contest founded on unity, peace, and connection has never felt more divided. We no longer recognise the Eurovision Song Contest we grew up with.”

Other conflicted fans have sought a middle ground. Welsh Eurovision fan Philip Dore published a widely shared reflective piece on fan site ESC Insight addressing the split, titled “So, what do Eurovision fans do now?” Dore noted that for many, Eurovision is far more than a one-night song competition: the event has longstanding deep ties to LGBTQ+ liberation and community, and is a key space of belonging for neurodiverse fans. He outlined a range of options for divided fans, from full personal boycott to a “halfway” approach that involves following pre-contest build-up but stepping back once events kick off in Vienna.

“This isn’t an easy situation for anyone,” Dore wrote. “Many people in the community are feeling a mix of sadness, anger, and loss, and I have no intention of adding judgment to anyone.”

Despite the deep rift, many of the traditional signs of Eurovision excitement remain visible across social media, where fans continue to share photos, memes, and interviews ahead of the contest. All tickets for nine total events in Vienna sold out in record time, with every grand final seat claimed in just 14 minutes. “To see every single show sell out so quickly is a powerful reminder of what the Eurovision Song Contest represents – joy, togetherness and shared experience at a time when that feels more important than ever,” said Martin Green, the British producer overseeing the 2026 contest.

The on-the-ground mood among fans is far more nuanced, however. “It still feels exciting. It still feels like something that I couldn’t miss. And, that said, it feels different,” said Rob Lilley-Jones, host of UK-based podcast Euro Trip. “There’s still that fun element but now, and for the last few years, you are going into Eurovision week with a sense of apprehension and nervous anticipation.” Lilley-Jones called the 2024 Malmö contest, marked by heightened security and pervasive backstage tension, the worst in the event’s history.

Marcos Maximillian Tritremmel, president of Austria’s national Eurovision fan club, told Germany’s Der Spiegel that he understands the motivations for protest, but confrontations with fans have crossed a line. “But when you get yelled at on your way into a concert hall – ‘What are you doing here? Why are you supporting the genocide?’ – at that point, it stops being funny.”

Lilley-Jones says he has debated ending his podcast over the controversy, but ultimately decided that continuing to create content feels like the right choice: if the contest can still bring small moments of joy to audiences navigating a difficult global context, he argues, it is worth continuing. That approach — prioritizing dialogue over further division — has become the prevailing attitude among many fans who choose to engage with this year’s event.

Vuletic, who has studied the contest’s long history of political controversy, argues that Eurovision will weather this current rift just as it has overcome past crises. He notes that claims this is the “most political Eurovision ever” overlook decades of political unrest tied to the event. For example, the 2009 contest in Moscow was overshadowed by violent police crackdowns on a gay pride rally held to coincide with the event, and the 2012 contest hosted by authoritarian Azerbaijan faced widespread criticism over the regime’s suppression of political dissent; that year’s winner, Sweden’s Loreen, publicly highlighted human rights abuses during her visit.

“The media tends to sensationalise the current moment but we’ve always had to navigate the political context [of the contest],” Vuletic said. “And the fans have always kept coming, no matter what.”

Organizers have worked to balance competing demands ahead of the 2026 opening: host Austrian public broadcaster has confirmed it will not ban Palestinian flags from the venue or censor audience booing of the Israeli entry. That said, the boycott will have concrete impacts: broadcasters in the boycotting countries will not air any 2026 content, almost guaranteeing a drop in global viewing figures. Uncertainty also lingers over what would happen if Israeli entry Noam Bettan’s ballad *Michelle* — ranked as one of the year’s strongest competitors — takes home the win.

For Eurovision’s fans, who have already navigated years of growing tension, the 2026 contest will unfold with far more trepidation than the usual upbeat pre-event anticipation.

In the southwestern German town of Völklingen, sitting just kilometers from the French border, a one-of-a-kind artistic collaboration has kicked off against a backdrop of industrial history. Dozens of urban creatives from 17 nations have gathered at Völklingen Ironworks — a decommissioned 19th-to-20th century iron production facility preserved as one of Europe’s most extraordinary industrial heritage sites — to launch the 2026 Urban Art Biennale, an event that continues a 15-year tradition of pairing contemporary street and graffiti art with the ironworks’ sprawling, atmospheric abandoned spaces.

As a UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in 1994, Völklingen Hütte holds unique global significance: it is the only fully intact integrated ironworks from the 19th and 20th centuries remaining intact across Western Europe and North America. Industrial iron production halted here in 1986, and the entire site has been preserved exactly as it stood when operations shut down, with no major new constructions added after the mid-1930s. Today, the 6-hectare (nearly 15-acre) site operates as a public museum, where visitors still navigate a maze of cold furnaces, towering chimneys, and original warning signs marking hazards like crushing risks that once faced workers.

For event organizers and participating artists, the ironworks is far more than a novel exhibition space — it is the foundational origin of street and urban art itself. “This location is at the core of street art and graffiti art,” explained Ralf Beil, general director of the Völklingen Hütte museum. “It all began in industrial places like this. Artists love this place and they do works for the Völklinger Hütte, in the Völklinger Hütte, with the Völklinger Hütte.”

This year’s biennale features 50 commissioned site-specific works, each tailored to the ironworks’ unique industrial character, with a deliberate rejection of commercialized art to prioritize pure, place-driven creation. Standout works range from provocative installations to large-scale interventions that play off the site’s layers of history. France-based artist Tomas Lacque has created an installation featuring a small van, a mound of tires, children’s toys, and debris coated entirely in a layer of paint. Placed in a cavernous hall that once housed active iron furnaces, the piece evokes the imagery of fossil fuel-powered transportation frozen and covered in ash, echoing the way ancient Roman Pompeii was preserved after volcanic eruption.

Spanish artist Ampparito has intervened directly into the site’s architecture, painting the phrase “no hay nada de valor” — translated as “There is nothing of value here” — in massive white lettering across the roof of one of the ironworks’ huge industrial sheds. The work is designed to be viewed from a 148-foot (45-meter) high viewing platform, turning a structural element of the former factory into a large-scale conceptual statement.

Other contributors include Dutch artist Boris Tellegen, better known by his artistic moniker Delta, who installed a massive black-and-green wooden sculpture that anchors and illuminates one of the ironworks’ interior halls. The France-based collective Vortex-X, which specializes in upcycling salvaged industrial materials, stretched sweeping arcs of white industrial fabric across an entire hall for their work titled *Memory in transit*, creating a dynamic installation that evokes movement and the passage of time at the dormant site.

Participating artists have emphasized the unique tension and beauty of creating contemporary work in a space that retains the grit and memory of its working past. British artist Remi Rough, who contributed small, sharply clean and clinical paintings that intentionally contrast with the site’s weathered texture, noted the unexpected aesthetic appeal of the abandoned facility: “It’s so dusty and it’s so old, but it’s beautiful, you know, there’s beauty in decay. I think what I’ve done makes you kind of just perceive it in a bit of a different way.”

Danish artist Anders Reventlov echoed the respect many creators hold for the site’s working history, saying he felt humbled by the opportunity to create work in a space that was once a brutal workplace. “As somebody told me … it was hell to work here. Now it’s not hell. It’s like a nice place, people walking around, there are bees, there are beautiful flowers, but yeah, we still remember the history and that’s super important.”

Beil emphasized that the biennale’s commitment to site-specificity rules out pre-made commercial works, keeping the focus entirely on art that responds to this one-of-a-kind location. “This is an installation for the space,” he said. “This is pure art.”

The 2026 Urban Art Biennale opens to the public on Saturday and will run through November 15, welcoming visitors to explore the intersection of contemporary urban art and 20th-century industrial heritage.