Swiss city of Basel is chosen to host next year’s Eurovision Song Contest

GENEVA (AP) — The Swiss metropolis of Basel will host subsequent 12 months’s Eurovision Track Contest from Could 13 to 17, organizers introduced Friday.

The principally German-speaking metropolis on the Rhine River bordering each France and Germany was chosen over Geneva in a faceoff that generated buzz and anticipation throughout Switzerland.

“The federal government council is delighted with the choice and sees internet hosting the world’s largest music competitors as an excellent alternative,” Basel’s metropolis council stated in a press release. “Basel will do all the pieces in its energy to be a great host.”

The Alpine nation received the suitable to host the annual glitzy song-and-dance extravaganza, which pulls lots of of hundreds of thousands of viewers worldwide, after Swiss singer Nemo received the competition’s 68th version in Could in Sweden.

Swiss public broadcaster SSR-SRG stated the number of Basel and the St. Jakobshalle indoor area was made based mostly on standards together with the corridor’s suitability to host the occasion, sustainability and questions of safety, funds made out there and “inventive concepts for the aspect occasions.”

Nemo was the primary Swiss winner since 1988, when Canada’s Celine Dion competed underneath the Swiss flag.

The tune contest is organized every year by the European Broadcasting Union, which is predicated in Geneva, with dozens of collaborating broadcasters.

Basel’s metropolis council cited an EBU research that discovered this 12 months’s contest within the Swedish metropolis of Malmö reached greater than 160 million TV viewers and over 80 million YouTube customers all over the world. It stated the promoting worth of the occasion was estimated to be 805 million euros ($892 million).

Switzerland hosted and received the primary version within the southern metropolis of Lugano in 1956.