Our Eurovision Song Contest 2020

The Eurovision Song Contest 2020 will be the 65th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. The contest will take place in Rotterdam, Netherlands, following the country's victory at the 2019 contest in Tel Aviv, Israel, with the song "Arcade" performed by Duncan Laurence. This will be the fifth time that the Netherlands hosts the contest, the last edition having been the 1980 contest, and the first Eurovision event to be hosted in the country since the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2012. The contest will be held at Rotterdam Ahoy; it will consist of two semi-finals on 12 and 14 May, and the final on 16 May 2020.

Forty-one countries will participate in the contest. Bulgaria and Ukraine will return after their absences from the 2019 contest, while Hungary and Montenegro withdrew.

Location
Further information on the host city: Rotterdam Rotterdam Ahoy, the venue of the Eurovision Song Contest 2020. The 2020 contest is to be held at Rotterdam Ahoy in Rotterdam, Netherlands. It is the fifth time the Netherlands host the contest, following the country's victory at the 2019 edition with the song "Arcade", performed by Duncan Laurence. Rotterdam Ahoy had previously hosted the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2007.

Preparations
Preparations for the 2020 contest began on 19 May 2019, immediately after the Netherlands won the 2019 contest in Tel Aviv, Israel. Jon Ola Sand, the executive supervisor of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) for the contest, handed AVROTROS, the Dutch participating broadcaster, a stack of documents and a USB drive with tools to begin the work needed to host the next contest. AVROTROS is co-organising the event with sister broadcaster Nederlandse Omroep Stichting (NOS) and their parent public broadcasting organisation, Nederlandse Publieke Omroep (NPO). Locations of the candidate cities: the chosen host city is marked in blue. The shortlisted cities are marked in green, while the eliminated cities are marked in red. Already prior to the 2019 contest, when bookmakers expected Laurence to win, several Dutch cities, including Amsterdam, The Hague and Maastricht, announced their intent to host the contest should Laurence win. A spokesperson for NPO also stated that the broadcaster had a rough plan for how they would select the host city in the event of a Dutch victory. When Laurence won the contest, mayors of various municipalities immediately began lobbying Mark Rutte, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, through text messages. Public figures, including Laurence, Esther Hart, Getty Kaspers and André Rieu, publicly voiced their support for their respective favourite host cities.

The hosting broadcasters launched the bidding process on 29 May 2019. In the first phase of this process, cities were to formally apply to bid. Nine cities—Amsterdam, Arnhem, Breda, 's-Hertogenbosch, The Hague, Leeuwarden, Maastricht, Rotterdam, and Utrecht—did so and received a list of criteria they and their venues needed to meet on 12 June 2019. Initially, Zwolle had also considered launching a bid to host the event but the city ultimately decided against doing so because it deemed its venue, the IJsselhallen, to have unsuitable proportions. Enschede could have been a potential host city as Enschede Airport Twente considered bidding to host the event in its eleventh hangar, however, it later learned that Enschede's municipality executive board had decided against financially supporting such a bid.

From this point on, these nine cities had until 10 July 2019 to compile their bid books to demonstrate their capabilities to host the contest. Further cities were still able to join in on the bidding race by applying prior to the deadline. During this period, four cities withdrew. Amsterdam could not host the contest because it was preoccupied with hosting other events during the contest's time frame. Breda dropped out due to financial concerns. Leeuwarden ceased bidding due to the insufficient height of the ceiling of its WTC Expo. The Hague dropped its bid because both of its potential venues were unsuitable for the event. The local Cars Jeans Stadion football stadium would have been large enough but lacked a roof, and installing such a roof would have made the bid financially unviable. Its other option would have been spanning a tent over the Malieveld field, but after reviewing the hosting conditions, this option fell out of favour. Following its withdrawal, The Hague turned to support Rotterdam's bid instead.

The five remaining cities—Arnhem, 's-Hertogenbosch, Maastricht, Rotterdam, and Utrecht—delivered their finished bid books to a ceremonial event held in Hilversum on 10 July 2019. The hosting broadcasters reviewed the bids presented and on 16 July 2019 announced that it eliminated those for Arnhem, 's-Hertogenbosch and Utrecht, shortlisting only Maastricht and Rotterdam. Utrecht was specifically eliminated because its proposal to span a tent over its Jaarbeurs offered limited possibilities for testing on location and had a questionable suitability for events like the Eurovision Song Contest, while 's-Hertogenbosch was dropped due to an insufficient ceiling height in its Brabanthallen and too few hotel rooms blocked for potential visitors of the contest.

To review and discuss the location, venue and surrounding events for the remaining bids, NPO visited Maastricht on 17 July 2019 and did the same in Rotterdam on the following day. By late July, additional visits to the two shortlisted cities were deemed necessary to review production logistics. The EBU did not pay visits to either city. Maastricht and Rotterdam were to hand in revised versions of their bid books by 9 August 2019 to add details involving the cities' social programmes, side-events and programme licensing. A "concept agreement" was put before the organisers in both Maastricht and Rotterdam in August 2019. While Rotterdam signed this agreement, the city council of Maastricht discussed and rejected it. Within the same council session, it was also clarified that the MECC would not receive additional renovations. On 30 August, Rotterdam was announced as the host city during a special broadcast on NPO 1 and NPO 2.

Key:  †  Host venue  ‡  Shortlisted venues