The Eurovision Song Contest 1964 was the 9th edition of the
Eurovision Song Contest
The Eurovision Song Contest (), often known simply as Eurovision, is an international Music competition, song competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) among its members since 1956. Each participating broadcaster ...
. It took place in
Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...
, Denmark, following the country's victory at the with the song "" by
Grethe and
Jørgen Ingmann
Jørgen Ingmann (born Jørgen Ingmann Pedersen; 26 April 1925 – 21 March 2015) was a Danish jazz and pop guitarist from Copenhagen. He was popular in Europe and had a wider international hit in 1961 with his version of "Apache". He and his w ...
. Organised by the
European Broadcasting Union
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU; , UER) is an alliance of Public broadcasting, public service media organisations in countries within the European Broadcasting Area (EBA) or who are member states of the Council of Europe, members of the ...
(EBU) and host broadcaster (DR), the contest was held at on 21 March 1964, and was hosted by Danish TV presenter
Lotte Wæver
Lotte Wæver (born 17 February 1942) is a Danish former actress and television presenter. She is best known for hosting the Eurovision Song Contest in .
Career
Television
During her time in university, Wæver worked as one of the first femal ...
.
Sixteen countries participated in the contest. made its debut this year, whereas decided not to enter.
The winner of the contest was with the song "", performed by
Gigliola Cinquetti
Gigliola Cinquetti (; born Giliola Cinquetti on 20 December 1947) is an Italian singer, songwriter and television presenter.
Life and career
Gigliola Cinquetti was born into a wealthy family in Verona, Italy.
At the age of 16, she debuted at ...
, written by
Nicola Salerno
Nicola Salerno (11 March 1910 – 22 May 1969), often known as Nisa, was an Italian lyricist. He formed a famous songwriting duo with Renato Carosone.
Life and career
Nicola Salerno was born in Naples in 1910.
His first hit was "Eulalia ...
and composed by
Mario Panzeri
Mario Panzeri (11 October 1911 – 19 May 1991) was an Italian lyricist and composer. He is well known for his composed songs that include "" "", "", and "", which won the first edition of the Sanremo Music Festival in 1951.
Panzeri was the c ...
. At the age of 16 years and 92 days, Gigliola Cinquetti became the youngest winner of the contest yet; a record she held until . The entry had one of the widest margins of victory ever witnessed in the competition. It garnered almost three times as many points as the second-placed song.
Besides the , the 1964 contest is the only other one of which there are no complete surviving video recordings.
Location

The host venue for the contest was (Tivoli Concert Hall) in Denmark's capital city
Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...
, which lies within Denmark's famous
amusement park
An amusement park is a park that features various attractions, such as rides and games, and events for entertainment purposes. A theme park is a type of amusement park that bases its structures and attractions around a central theme, often fea ...
and
pleasure garden
A pleasure garden is a park or garden that is open to the public for recreation and entertainment. Pleasure gardens differ from other public gardens by serving as venues for entertainment, variously featuring such attractions as concert halls, b ...
Tivoli Gardens
Tivoli Gardens, also known simply as Tivoli (), is an amusement park and pleasure garden in Copenhagen, Denmark. The park opened on 15 August 1843 and is the third-oldest operating amusement park in the world, after Dyrehavsbakken in nearby Kla ...
. The park, alluding by its name to the that existed in Paris, was opened on 15 August 1843, and is the second oldest amusement park in the world, after in nearby
Klampenborg
Klampenborg is a northern suburb of Copenhagen, Denmark. It is located in Gentofte Municipality, Gentofte municipality, directly on Øresund, between Taarbæk and Skovshoved. Like other neighbourhoods along the Øresund coast, Klampenborg is an ...
.
[Tivoli – Tivoli Gardens Copenhagen – Copenhagen Portal – Tourist Guide](_blank)
Copenhagenet.dk. Retrieved on 15 August 2011.
At the night of the contest, 800 spectators followed the show in the audience.
Participants
did not participate this year due to a strike among members of the
Swedish Union for Performing Arts and Film (). Swedish broadcaster
Sveriges Radio
Sveriges Radio Aktiebolag, AB (; "Sweden's Radio") is Sweden's national publicly funded radio programming, radio broadcaster. Sveriges Radio is a public limited company, owned by an independent foundation, previously funded through a television ...
however did ultimately broadcast the event.
competed in the contest for the first time, however they became the first country to score ''nul points'' on their début entry. Germany, Switzerland, and Yugoslavia also scored ''nul points'' for the first time. The Netherlands became the first country to send a singer of non-European ancestry,
Anneke Grönloh
Johanna Louise "Anneke" Grönloh (; 7 June 1942 – 14 September 2018) was a Dutch singer. She had a successful career starting in 1959 that lasted throughout the 1960s, and scored a hit with " Brandend Zand", one of the best-selling Dutch songs o ...
who was of Indonesian descent.
[ Spain decided to send the Italian-Uruguayan group ]Los TNT
Los TNT () were an Italian-Uruguayan rock 'n' roll band, popular in the 1960s. The band consisted of two brothers and a sister from Udine, Italy: Edelweiss "Tim" Croatto (born 1936), Hermes "Tony" Croatto (1939 - 2005), and Argentina "Nelly" Cro ...
who were the first group of three or more participants in the history of the contest.
Only one of the performing artists had previously competed representing the same country in past editions: Anita Traversi
Anita Traversi (25 July 1937 – 25 September 1991) was a Swiss singer, best known for her participation in the Eurovision Song Contests of 1960 and 1964.
Early career
Born in Giubiasco, Traversi was encouraged by her father, a musician, and st ...
had represented , and had also provided backing vocals for .
Format
Poul Leth Sørensen served as producer, Bent Fabricius Bjerre and Marianne Drewes acted as co-producers.
The prize to be awarded to the winning artist took the form of an engraved medallion made of silver.
The event was covered by around 100 journalists and photographers. The artists were accompanied by a 41-piece orchestra. Rehearsals started on 19 March 1964.
Contest overview
The contest was held on 21 March 1964, beginning at 22:00 CET
CET or cet may refer to:
Places
* Cet, Albania
* Cet, standard astronomical abbreviation for the constellation Cetus
* Colchester Town railway station (National Rail code CET), in Colchester, England
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Comcast En ...
(21:00 UTC
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...
).
A political protest occurred after the Swiss entry: an anonymous man trespassed onto the stage holding a banner that read "Boycot Franco & Salazar". Whilst this was going on, television viewers were shown a shot of the scoreboard; once the man was removed by a television technician, the contest went on.
The interval act consisted of a ballet dance performance by dancers Solveig Østergaard, Niels Kehlet, Inge Olafsen and Mette Hønningen from the Royal Danish Ballet
The Royal Danish Ballet ( Danish: ''Den Kongelige Ballet'') is an internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Royal Danish Theatre in Kongens Nytorv, Copenhagen, Denmark. It is one of the oldest ballet companies in the world a ...
, choreographed by Niels Bjørn Larsen, and over the music of the "Columbine porka mazurka" and the " Champagne Galop" by Hans Christian Lumbye
Hans Christian Lumbye (; 2 May 1810 – 20 March 1874) was a Danish composer of waltzes, polkas, mazurkas and galops, among other things.
Beginnings
As a child, he studied music in Randers and Odense, and by age 14 he was playing the trumpet ...
.
The immediate response of the Koncertsal audience to the Italian entry was markedly enthusiastic and prolonged and, most unusually for a contest performance, after leaving the stage Gigliola Cinquetti was allowed to return to take a second bow. Her performance was given an unscheduled repeat on British television the following afternoon. In the event, she won the most crushing victory in the history of the contest, with a score almost three times that of her nearest rival, a feat extremely unlikely ever to be beaten under the post-1974 scoring system.
An aftershow party was held for the participating delegations at the restaurant Ambassadeur in Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...
. Each of the 16 participating acts was awarded a silver trophy on this occasion.
Spokespersons
Each participating broadcaster appointed a spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for its respective country via telephone. Known spokespersons at the 1964 contest are listed below.
*
Detailed voting results
Each participating broadcaster assembled a 10-member jury panel who distributed three points among their one, two, or three favourite songs. The points were totaled and the first, second, and third placed songs were awarded 5, 3, and 1 votes in order. If only one song got every point within the jury it would get all 9 points. If only two songs were chosen, the songs would get 6 and 3 points in order.
5 points
Below is a summary of all 5 points in the final:
Broadcasts
Each participating broadcaster was required to relay the contest via its networks. Non-participating EBU member broadcasters were also able to relay the contest as "passive participants". Broadcasters were able to send commentators to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language and to relay information about the artists and songs to their television viewers. No official accounts of the viewing figures are known to exist. Estimates given in the press ranged from 100 to 150 million viewers.
Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below.
Lost recordings
As with the , no complete video recording of the actual contest is known to have survived. Some clips of the contest have survived, including the winning announcement by Svend Pedersen, and part of Gigliola Cinquetti
Gigliola Cinquetti (; born Giliola Cinquetti on 20 December 1947) is an Italian singer, songwriter and television presenter.
Life and career
Gigliola Cinquetti was born into a wealthy family in Verona, Italy.
At the age of 16, she debuted at ...
's reprise. For some time, there was a rumour that a copy of the entire contest existed in the French television archives. In 2021, INA confirmed to ''Wiwibloggs
Wiwibloggs is a fansite and YouTube channel focusing on the Eurovision Song Contest, launched in 2009 by journalist William Lee Adams.
History
In April 2015, Wiwibloggs won the Arts & Culture category at the UK Blog Awards.
Adams has judged ...
'' that the French television archives do not possess a video copy of the contest. However, the audio of a French radio broadcast can be found in the archives of INA.
A persistent myth, even repeated on the official Eurovision site, is that the tape was destroyed in a fire in the 1970s. In a 2019 interview, DR claimed that the broadcast was never recorded in the first place, allegedly due to no tape machines being available at the studio at the time. The audio of most of the show, however, is still available online, without the last few minutes, and short video clips and photos from various archives also remain available.
Notes
References
External links
*
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1964
Events January
* January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved.
* January 5 – In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patria ...
Music festivals in Denmark
1964 in music
1964 in Denmark
March 1964 in Europe
Events in Copenhagen
1960s in Copenhagen
Lost television shows