What time does the Eurovision 2025 final start and who is in it?

The Eurovision Music Contest is again – this time in Basel, Switzerland.

The UK’s entry this 12 months is Keep in mind Monday – a country-pop trio who will carry out their track What The Hell Simply Occurred.

The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual televised competitors organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

The theme for the 2025 version is “Welcome Home”, as the primary contest was held in Switzerland in 1956.

Songs have to be authentic and not more than three minutes lengthy. They can’t have been launched or publicly carried out earlier than 1 September 2024.

Lead vocals have to be stay, with no lip-syncing or auto-tuning allowed and a most of six singers and dancers.

A complete of 37 international locations are collaborating in Eurovision 2025 – all however one took half in final 12 months’s contest in Malmö, Sweden.

Montenegro returns to the competitors this 12 months for the primary time since 2022, changing Moldova – which withdrew due to monetary and logistical challenges.

Most Eurovision international locations are European, however Australia takes half yearly, after being invited to affix Eurovision’s sixtieth anniversary celebrations in 2015. Australia, nonetheless, can not host if it ever wins.

Different non-European international locations together with Israel take part as a result of they’re members of the EBU.

Russia has been banned since 2022, following its invasion of Ukraine.

Switzerland is taking part in host to Eurovision 2025 after contestant Nemo gained the 2024 contest with the track The Code.

Nemo is because of seem as a visitor performer this 12 months too, regardless of accusing the competition of not supporting artists sufficient in 2024.

That is the third time that Switzerland has hosted Eurovision. Its contestant this 12 months is Zoë Më, with the track Voyage.

The “big five” nations who present further monetary help to Eurovision get an computerized qualification for the ultimate. These are the UK, Italy, Spain, France and Germany.

Switzerland additionally will get a golden ticket to honour final 12 months’s victory.

Within the first semi-final on 13 Might, Céline Dion, who gained the competition for Switzerland in 1988, delivered a pre-recorded message celebrating the “beautiful” return of the competition to Basel.

These international locations certified from the first semi-final:

• Albania: Shkodra Elektronike – Zjerm
• Estonia: Tommy Money – Espresso Macchiato
• Iceland: VÆB – RÓA
• Netherlands: Claude – C’est La Vie
• Norway: Kyle Alessandro – Lighter
• Poland: Justyna Steczkowska – GAJA
• Portugal: NAPA – Deslocado
• San Marino: Gabry Ponte – Tutta L’Italia
• Sweden: KAJ – Bara Bada Bastu
• Ukraine: Ziferblat – Chook of Pray

The next international locations certified from the second semi-final:

• Armenia: PARG – SURVIVOR
• Austria: JJ – Wasted Love
• Denmark: Sissal – Hallucination
• Finland: Erika Vikman – ICH KOMME
• Greece: Klavdia – Asteromáta
• Israel: Yuval Raphael – New Day Will Rise
• Latvia: Tautumeitas – Bur Man Laimi
• Lithuania: Katarsis – Tavo Akys
• Luxembourg: Laura Thorn – La Poupée Monte Le Son (pictured above)
• Malta: Miriana Conte – SERVING

Lady band Remember Monday are made up of Lauren Byrne, Holly-Anne Hull and Charlotte Steele.

They are going to be performing a song titled What The Hell Just Happened, stuffed with harmonies and pop melodies.

The band shaped at college in Farnborough, Hampshire, and appeared on TV expertise present The Voice, in 2019. Lauren and Holly-Anne have additionally appeared in West Finish exhibits like Phantom of the Opera and Six: The Musical.

They’re going to be hoping to show across the UK’s fortunes, after the final two contestants Olly Alexander and Mae Muller each completed on the backside finish of the desk in 2024 and 2023 respectively.

Greater than 70 former Eurovision contestants, together with Britain’s Mae Muller, have signed an open letter demanding that Israel’s public broadcaster KAN be banned from the competition, alleging that it was “complicit in Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza”.

Eurovision, which has all the time billed itself as non-political, has resisted requires Israel to be excluded.

Yuval Raphael, Israel’s contestant this year, informed BBC Information she was “expecting” to be booed throughout her efficiency.

The inclusion of Israel sparked controversy final 12 months, when its contestant Eden Golan additionally confronted boos throughout a rehearsal and hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered exterior the venue.

Golan was additionally compelled to vary the lyrics of her entry, titled Hurricane, to take away references to the lethal assaults by Hamas on Israel, on 7 October 2023.

The final main music occasion Raphael attended was the Nova pageant, in Israel, when it got here beneath assault by Hamas gunmen throughout the 7 October assaults and greater than 360 folks had been killed.

Round 1,200 folks had been killed in Israel by gunmen led by Hamas that day, and 251 had been taken hostage. Throughout Israel’s ensuing army marketing campaign in Gaza greater than 53,000 folks have been killed, based on the territory’s Hamas-run well being ministry.

Within the closing, each taking part nation is awarded two units of scores – one from a jury of music specialists and one from followers round Europe.

Followers get a most of 20 votes, solid through cellphone name, SMS or through the official Eurovision app. They’ll vote for as many alternative acts as they like, however votes in your house nation are banned.

As soon as the traces shut, every nation can have chosen a “Top 10” of their favorite songs. The preferred track will get 12 factors, the second alternative will get 10, and the remaining are scored from eight to 1.

Viewers from international locations that do not take part in Eurovision additionally get a say. Their selections are bundled right into a single bloc referred to as the “rest of the world vote”.