Eurovision Song Contest 1964

The Eurovision Song Contest 1964 was the 9th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, following the country's victory at the with the song "" by Grethe and Jørgen Ingmann. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster (DR), the contest was held at on 21 March 1964, and was hosted by Danish TV presenter Lotte Wæver.

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, written by Nicola Salerno and composed by Mario Panzeri. 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, which lies within Denmark's famous amusement park and pleasure garden Tivoli Gardens. 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.Tivoli – Tivoli Gardens Copenhagen – Copenhagen Portal – Tourist Guide
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 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 who was of Indonesian descent. Spain decided to send the Italian-Uruguayan group Los TNT 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 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 (21:00 UTC).

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, choreographed by Niels Bjørn Larsen, and over the music of the "Columbine porka mazurka" and the " Champagne Galop" by Hans Christian Lumbye.

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. 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'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'' 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
Music festivals in Denmark
1964 in music
1964 in Denmark
March 1964 in Europe
Events in Copenhagen
1960s in Copenhagen
Lost television shows