Eurovision Song Contest 1988

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Eurovision Song Contest 1988
Dates
Final	30 April 1988
Host
Venue	RDS Simmonscourt Pavilion, Ballsbridge, Dublin, Ireland
Presenter(s)	Pat Kenny Michelle Rocca
Musical director	Noel Kelehan
Directed by	Declan Lowney
Executive supervisor	Frank Naef
Executive producer	Liam Miller
Host broadcaster	Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ)
Opening act	"Hold Me Now" performed by Johnny Logan
Interval act	"Don't Go" performed by Hothouse Flowers
Website	eurovision.tv/event/dublin-1988
Participants
Number of entries	21
Debuting countries	None
Returning countries	None
Non-returning countries	Cyprus
hide Participation map      Participating countries     Countries that participated in the past but not in 1988
Vote
Voting system	Each country awarded 12, 10, 8-1 point(s) to their 10 favourite songs
Nul points	Austria
Winning song	Switzerland "Ne partez pas sans moi"
1987 ← Eurovision Song Contest → 1989

The Eurovision Song Contest 1988 was the 33rd edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. The contest took place on 30 April 1988 in Dublin, Ireland, following the country's win at the previous 1987 edition. The presenters were Pat Kenny and Michelle Rocca. The host broadcaster was Radio Telefís Éireann (RTÉ) which revamped the show's production style compared to its earlier editions, in order to appeal to a younger audience.

The winner was Switzerland with the song "Ne partez pas sans moi", performed by Canadian singer Céline Dion and composed by Atilla Şereftuğ with lyrics in French by Nella Martinetti. Switzerland beat the United Kingdom by just one point in the last vote to win the title. As of 2021, this is the last time a song in the French language won. Twenty-one countries took part, after an initial plan of twenty-two, as Cyprus was disqualified for breaching the contest's rules by being published a few years earlier, in an attempt to represent the country at a prior edition of the contest. The Cypriot song had been drawn to be performed 2nd in the running order.

Location[]

Dublin is the capital and largest city of Ireland. Dublin is in the province of Leinster on Ireland's east coast, at the mouth of the River Liffey. Founded as a Viking settlement, the Kingdom of Dublin became Ireland's principal city following the Norman invasion. The city expanded rapidly from the 17th century and was briefly the second largest city in the British Empire before the Acts of Union in 1800. Following independence in 1922, Dublin became the capital of the Republic of Ireland.

The contest took place at the Simmonscourt Pavilion of the Royal Dublin Society, which was normally used for agricultural and horse shows. The same venue hosted the 1981 contest. The staging of the contest in Dublin in 1988 formed part of Dublin’s year long celebration of 1000 years since it was established by Scandinavian settlers in 988.

Format[]

Graphic design[]

Host broadcaster RTÉ employed Declan Lowney, who was notable for being a director of music videos and youth programming, as director for this edition, in order to revamp the contest to attract and sustain a younger audience. The traditional scoreboard was replaced with two giant Vidiwalls located on either side of the stage, which also projected live images of the performers from the green room where the competitors set during the votes announcements, and a new computer-generated scoreboard was used.

The stage itself, conceived by Paula Farrell under chief production designer Michael Grogan, was also the largest and most elaborate ever constructed for the Eurovision Song Contest. To compensate for the fact that the vast stage took up most of the room in what is really an average size exhibition hall, the director deliberately darkened the hall where the audience was located and refused to use wide angled shots of the audience, in order to create the illusion of the venue being bigger than it actually was.

The Postcards featured the participants doing things in Ireland from culture, to tradition, to sports or sightseeing.

Lowney was also the director of the show's interval act, introduced after the competing songs and before the votes announcement. The interval act was a video of the popular Irish rock group Hothouse Flowers, which was filmed in eleven countries around Europe and was the most expensive music video ever produced in Ireland at the time.

Voting[]

Each country had a jury who awarded 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 point(s) for its top ten songs. The number of jury members changed this year from 11 which had been the limit since 1975 to 16 which would be used until 1996 when some countries abolished it after the contest in favour of televoting and fully after 1997.

This edition features one of the closest and most fickle-ending votes in the history of the contest. With three countries left to vote, the UK was well in the lead with 133 points against Switzerland's 118. With the third last country, France, only awarding Switzerland one point, the UK looked certain of victory, as even if Switzerland scooped the two final 12s, the UK would only need to gather eleven points from three juries combined to be unbeatable. However, France didn't award the UK any points, and the following country, Portugal, gave the UK a meagre three points while giving the maximum 12 to Switzerland, making the contest blown open between the two countries until the end of the voting.

With the conclusion of voting from the penultimate jury, the UK was holding a five-point lead over Switzerland. As the final jury, that of Yugoslavia, began to award its points in the customary ascending order, a lot of excitement-sighs were heard from the audience to see how the two rivals for victory would fare. Switzerland was the first to be named with six points, edging it into a one-point lead over the UK. After earlier strong votes from most countries to the UK, it seemed highly likely that the UK would be given one of the higher remaining set of points. However as Yugoslavia announced its seven, eight, ten and twelve points, it transpired that it had awarded the UK no points at all (12 points from Yugoslavia went to France), ^[a] and Switzerland was left with its one-point lead to savour a dramatic triumph.

Conductors[]

Each performance had a conductor who was maestro to the orchestra, except for Iceland and Italy. Unlike in most years, the conductors took their bows after each song, not before.

Participants[]

Twenty-one countries took part, after an initial plan of twenty-two, as Cyprus was disqualified after it had already submitted an entry. Cypriot broadcaster CyBC had selected the song 'Thimame' sung by Yiannis Dimitrou, and at a late stage saw that the song was ineligible to represent them as it had been entered into the Cypriot selection for the 1984 Contest, where it had finished in 3rd place. This was classed as a breach of the Cypriot rules of selecting their entry at this time as well as an infringement of the Eurovision Song Contest rules. It was a very late decision as the song was already drawn to perform second in the contest, advertised in the Radio Times information about the preview programme of the contest, and appears as song number two in accordance to its initial performance draw, on the record release “Melodi Grand Prix 1988” – the compilation disc of the contest’s entries.

This was the second victory for Switzerland at the Eurovision Song Contest after winning its first edition in 1956, and the last time a song in French won the contest, the language having dominated the event in earlier years.

The contest helped launch an international career for two artists, the winner for Switzerland Céline Dion and Luxembourg’s representative Lara Fabian. French-Canadian Céline Dion was only famous in the French-speaking world at the time of the contest, shortly afterwards started recording songs in English.^[1] Belgian-Canadian Lara Fabian started a successful career after the contest with becoming established in various countries worldwide, with a mainly French-sung repertoire.^[1] The UK entry was written and composed by Julie Forsyth, the daughter of the entertainer Bruce Forsyth who was present. When interviewed afterwards he was particularly annoyed at the Dutch jury not having given a vote to the UK, as they had done some work there.

Returning artists[]

Artist	Country	Previous year(s)
Hot Eyes	Denmark	1984, 1985
Boulevard	Finland	1987 (as backing group for Vicky Rosti)
Yardena Arazi	Israel	1976 (as part of Chocolate, Menta, Mastik), 1979 (as presenter)[b]
Reuven Gvirtz and Yehuda Tamir (backing singers)		1979 (as part of Milk and Honey)
Dora	Portugal	1986
Tommy Körberg	Sweden	1969
MFÖ	Turkey	1985

Results[]

Draw	Country	Artist	Song	Language[2][3]	Place[4]	Points
01	Iceland		"Þú og þeir (Sókrates)"	Icelandic	16	20
02	Sweden	Tommy Körberg	"Stad i ljus"	Swedish	12	52
03	Finland	Boulevard	"Nauravat silmät muistetaan"	Finnish	20	3
04	United Kingdom	Scott Fitzgerald	"Go"	English	2	136
05	Turkey	MFÖ	"Sufi"	Turkish	15	37
06	Spain	La Década	"La chica que yo quiero (Made in Spain)"	Spanish	11	58
07	Netherlands	Gerard Joling	"Shangri-La"	Dutch	9	70
08	Israel	Yardena Arazi	"Ben Adam" (בן אדם)	Hebrew	7	85
09	Switzerland	Céline Dion	"Ne partez pas sans moi"	French	1	137
10	Ireland	Jump the Gun	"Take Him Home"	English	8	79
11	Germany		"Lied für einen Freund"	German	14	48
12	Austria	Wilfried	"Lisa Mona Lisa"	German	21	0
13	Denmark	Hot Eyes	"Ka' du se hva' jeg sa'?"	Danish	3	92
14	Greece	Afroditi Frida	"Clown" (Κλόουν)	Greek	17	10
15	Norway	Karoline Krüger	"For vår jord"	Norwegian	5	88
16	Belgium	Reynaert	"Laissez briller le soleil"	French	18	5
17	Luxembourg	Lara Fabian	"Croire"	French	4	90
18	Italy	Luca Barbarossa	"Vivo (Ti scrivo)"	Italian	12	52
19	France	Gérard Lenorman	"Chanteur de charme"	French	10	64
20	Portugal	Dora	"Voltarei"	Portuguese	18	5
21	Yugoslavia	Srebrna krila	"Mangup" (Мангуп)	Serbo-Croatian	6	87

Scoreboard[]

Voting results^[5]

		Total score	Iceland	Sweden	Finland	United Kingdom	Turkey	Spain	Netherlands	Israel	Switzerland	Ireland	Germany	Austria	Denmark	Greece	Norway	Belgium	Luxembourg	Italy	France	Portugal	Yugoslavia
Contestants	Iceland	20		1					4						4					1	2	8
	Sweden	52	3			2			8			5			8		12	1	3	10
	Finland	3								3
	United Kingdom	136	1	5	10		12	10		10	5	7	10	10	10	6	5	12	8	12		3
	Turkey	37		4		1		5	1	8			8						4		6
	Spain	58	2				5			2	6			8	1	8	2	6	6	8			4
	Netherlands	70				6	6			7	7	2	6			12			12	5			7
	Israel	85	6		6	4		6	3		10	1	5	2		3		10	5	3	10	10	1
	Switzerland	137	7	12	5	10	10	8	10	4		10	12			10	8	4	1	7	1	12	6
	Ireland	79		7	2	3	2	12	6		4		7	6	7		7	5			4	5	2
	Germany	48	8			5	1	3		5		6			6		4					2	8
	Austria	0
	Denmark	92	10	3	4			1	12	6	1	4	4	12			10	7			12	6
	Greece	10					3														7
	Norway	88	5	8	7	12			7	1		8	1	3	5	7		3		4		7	10
	Belgium	5																			5
	Luxembourg	90	4	10	12	7			5		12	12		1	2	2	6	8		2		4	3
	Italy	52			8		4	7			8		2	5			3		2		8		5
	France	64		2	3		8	2	2		3		3	7	3	5	1	2	10			1	12
	Portugal	5						4								1
	Yugoslavia	87	12	6	1	8	7			12	2	3		4	12	4			7	6	3

12 points[]

Below is a summary of all 12 points in the final:

N.	Contestant	Nation(s) giving 12 points
3	Denmark	Austria,  France,  Netherlands
	Luxembourg	Finland,  Ireland,   Switzerland
	Switzerland	Germany,  Portugal,  Sweden
	United Kingdom	Belgium,  Italy,  Turkey
	Yugoslavia	Denmark,  Iceland,  Israel
2	Netherlands	Greece,  Luxembourg
1	France	Yugoslavia
	Ireland	Spain
	Norway	United Kingdom
	Sweden	Norway

Commentators[]

Television[]

Participating countries[]

Non-participating countries[]

•  Australia – N/A (SBS TV)
•  Cyprus - Dafni Bokota (RIK - simulcast with ET1)
•  Soviet Union - Unknown

Radio[]

Some participating countries did not provide radio broadcasts for the event; the ones who did are listed below.

Spokespersons[]

•  Iceland - Guðrún Skúladóttir^[6]
•  Sweden - Maud Uppling^[7]
•  Finland - Solveig Herlin^[23]
•  United Kingdom - Colin Berry
•  Turkey - Canan Kumbasar
•  Spain - Matilde Jarrín
•  Netherlands – Joop van Os
•  Israel - Yitzhak Shim'oni^[24]
•   Switzerland - Michel Stocker^[25]
•  Ireland - John Skehan
•  Germany - Corry von Kiel
•  Austria - Tilia Herold
•  Denmark -  [dk]
•  Greece - Fotini Giannoulatou^[26]
•  Norway - Andreas Diesen^[27]
•  Belgium - Jacques Olivier
•  Luxembourg - Jean-Luc Bertrand
•  Italy - Mariolina Cannuli
•  France - Catherine Ceylac
•  Portugal - Maria Margarida Gaspar^[22]
•  Yugoslavia - Miša Molk^[28]

National jury members[]

The size of the national juries changed this year from 11 to 16 members, and this lasted until 1997.

•  Iceland - Árni Gunnarsson, Ásgeir Guðnason, Davíð Sveinsson, Elín Þóra Stefánsdóttir, Ellý Þorðardóttir, Erla Björk Jónasdóttir, Guðrún Kristmannsdóttir, Hólmfríður Jónsdóttir, Jónas Engilbertsson, Jónína Bachmann, Kjartan Þor Kjartansson, Ólafur Egilsson, Sigrún Kristjánsdóttir, Sigurður Fanndal, Sigurður Ægisson, Þórdís Garðarsdóttir^[6]
•  Finland – Ilpo Hakasalo^[29]
•  United Kingdom – Nicola Chapman, Terry Clarke, Alfred Collet, Geoff Dennis, James Douglas, Alison Fox, Mike Goss, Carol Holroyd, Muir Johnson, Karen Marsden, Mavis Masters, Molly Roberts, Andrew Sidell, Renate Smith, Paul Tunnicliffe, Robert Unsworth
•  Spain – (businessman), (former model and Miss Europe), Mario Pardo (actor), Lola Forner (actress), José Coronado (actor), Analía Gadé (actress), "El Litri" (bullfighter), Laura Valenzuela (actress and TV host, presenter of Eurovision Song Contest 1969), (writer), (fashion model), (journalist), (PhD in Political Sciences and lecturer), Jorge Sanz (actor), Emma Suárez (actress), (dancer), (architect)
•  Netherlands – Hans van den Berg, Bert Tuk
•  Ireland - Bill Cleary
•  Denmark – Anni Thorslund Larsen
•  Greece – Alexandros Roussos

Notes[]

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Eurovision Song Contest 1988.

• Official website