As millions of music fans across the globe make their final preparations for the 2026 iteration of the Eurovision Song Contest, a brand new exhibition in the United Kingdom is pulling back the curtain on the seven-decade history of technical breakthroughs that transformed this iconic singing competition from a risky broadcast experiment into one of the world’s most watched live annual events.
The very first Eurovision, held back in 1956 at Switzerland’s Teatro Kursaal in Lugano, was far from a simple production. In an era long before high-speed digital communications, engineers faced the unprecedented challenge of transmitting live video footage across Western Europe, navigating rugged mountain terrain, crossing multiple national borders, and working around incompatible domestic broadcasting systems using nothing more than microwave relay towers and early terrestrial transmission links.
“It really was groundbreaking, because it was a really early example of a live simultaneous broadcast across Europe,” explained Sarah Rawlins, public programme developer at Bradford’s National Science and Media Museum and curator of the new exhibition. “Everyone in France and West Germany, Italy, they were all watching the same thing at the same time. When you think that was happening in 1956, that is actually remarkable that they had the technology to pull that off.”
The foundational work for this cross-continental broadcast had already been laid years earlier, when the 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II was transmitted across multiple European countries, Rawlins noted. That successful large-scale experiment proved both that there was widespread public appetite for shared pan-European television content and that transnational live broadcasting was technically achievable, clearing the way for the launch of Eurovision.
Over the 70 years since that first contest, Eurovision has expanded dramatically from its original lineup of just 7 competing nations to the 35 countries that take part today. Alongside this growth, broadcast technology for the event has evolved continuously, adapting to rising global audience demand through shifts from early microwave transmission to satellite broadcasting, and more recently to high-speed digital fibre optic connections. That evolution has cemented Eurovision’s status as one of the world’s largest live broadcast events, with the 2025 contest drawing a global audience of more than 166 million viewers.
The exhibition, titled *Setting the Stage: 70 Years of the Eurovision Song Contest*, traces this steady technological evolution step by step. Visitors can explore everything from the first satellite-broadcast contest in 1969 to behind-the-scenes time-lapse footage showing the rapid construction of the 2021 contest stage at Rotterdam Ahoy Arena in the Netherlands. The display also highlights Eurovision’s long history of driving industry-wide broadcast innovation: the contest hosted the first widespread color television broadcasts for a pan-European audience, launched the global career of iconic pop group ABBA with its 1974 competition, and pioneered the large-scale public televoting systems that remain a core part of the event today. That 1997 televoting trial also cemented one of Eurovision’s most iconic cultural phrases: “nul points.”
While the exhibition’s central focus is the engineering and technology behind Eurovision’s global broadcast, it also dedicates space to the passionate global fan community that has sustained the competition for seven decades. “When you are talking about why it has been going for 70 years, a lot of it is down to the fans,” Rawlins said. “A lot of the time when we speak to fans, they talk a lot about their love of the competition, but also how it brings them together. I have spoken to a lot of people who have essentially made friends for life, and the community around Eurovision is a really big part of what they enjoy.”
*Setting the Stage: 70 Years of the Eurovision Song Contest* will run at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford until February 2027. Visitors can access additional related content on BBC Sounds and the BBC’s Look North regional news programme.