Eurovision RP

1) The Eurovision machine, in RP terms

Eurovision is built like a pressure cooker. For RP, the key mechanic is that the final gives each country two separate score sets — one from the jury and one from the televote — both ranked from 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Since 2023, the semi-finals are decided by televote only, with an aggregated Rest of the World vote added in the live shows; by 2026, the system also uses seven-person juries instead of five.

Backstage is its own city. The show-day rhythm is not “arrive, sing, leave”; it is rehearsal, notes, hair, makeup, prop checks, camera blocking, smoke, pyro, sound, and then a live broadcast with a second performance history living right underneath it. The official backstage coverage describes artists moving through a delegation bubble, a hair-and-makeup salon, and a Green Room where reactions are watched live, while Reuters notes that the stage crew can reset huge sets in roughly 48 seconds. That is pure RP gold: the arena is basically a tiny state with its own diplomacy, panic, gossip, and hierarchy.

2) 2021 — Rotterdam, Netherlands: the “Open Up” year

2021 was the Rotterdam edition, held at Rotterdam Ahoy in the Netherlands, with Chantal Janzen, Edsilia Rombley, Jan Smit, and Nikkie de Jager as presenters. The stage kept the originally planned 2020 design: a Dutch landscape-inspired set with a large revolving LED screen, a semi-transparent backdrop screen, AR effects, and the Green Room placed inside the main floor space to help with distancing. The contest also still felt the shadow of the pandemic: the arena was capped at 3,500 audience members, and the event had multiple COVID-related disruptions. Armenia did not participate, Belarus was disqualified, and the whole show had that tense “we are lucky to be here at all” energy.

The final was won by Italy’s Måneskin with “Zitti e buoni”, on 524 points, with France second, Switzerland third, then Iceland, Ukraine, Finland, Malta, Lithuania, Russia, and Greece completing the top ten. For RP, this year feels like a collision of glam, uncertainty, and youthful defiance: the room is full of artists who are either surviving the pandemic era or turning it into art.

My RP cast for 2021 would treat these as the main gravitational bodies: Måneskin (Italy) are loud, beautiful chaos — rockstars who know they are dangerous; Barbara Pravi (France) is the emotional poet, intense and controlled; Gjon’s Tears (Switzerland) is elegant melancholy in human form; Go_A (Ukraine) is ritual energy, tribal and otherworldly; The Roop (Lithuania) is playful, odd, and surprisingly disciplined; Destiny (Malta) is diva power with a grin. Those are the people who change the temperature of a room the second they walk in.

For the songs that matter most to fandom memory, 2021’s OGAE fan poll crowned Malta’s “Je me casse”; the poll’s top five also included “Tout l’univers” (Switzerland), “Voilà” (France), “Discoteque” (Lithuania), and “El Diablo” (Cyprus). On the wider cultural side, Måneskin’s victory exploded beyond the contest: “Zitti e buoni” and the band’s other tracks became major chart items, which is exactly the kind of “Eurovision winner becomes a real-world monster” energy you can use in RP if you want a delegation that suddenly has paparazzi problems instead of just contest problems.

3) 2022 — Turin, Italy: war-shadowed spectacle

2022 moved to Turin, at the Palasport Olimpico, with Alessandro Cattelan, Laura Pausini, and Mika presenting. The stage design was called “The Sun Within”: a kinetic, theatrical sun with a water cascade and an Italian-garden-style Green Room. Unlike Rotterdam, this edition ran at full capacity, though the audience had to wear masks inside the venue. It felt more stable on the surface, but politically it was one of the heaviest editions in modern Eurovision history.

The biggest context bomb was the war in Ukraine. Reuters reported that Russia was banned from the contest after the invasion, and Ukraine’s eventual win became a gigantic public-vote moment in a war-year contest. The final was won by Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra with “Stefania” on 631 points, followed by the United Kingdom, then Spain, Sweden, Serbia, Italy, Moldova, Greece, Portugal, and Norway. In RP terms, Turin is where the contest stops being “just music TV” and becomes a battlefield of emotion, solidarity, fandom, and politics.

The 2022 RP cast is full of strong archetypes. Kalush Orchestra (Ukraine) should be played like folk-rap resistance heroes: collective, loyal, protective, and very aware of what they represent. Sam Ryder (UK) is the golden-retriever rocket of the season — absurd vocal power, openly kind, slightly unreal. Chanel (Spain) is precision, discipline, and star-control. Cornelia Jakobs (Sweden) is raw late-night heartbreak with a cool exterior. Konstrakta (Serbia) is deadpan conceptual genius, the kind of person who can look you in the eye while dismantling your whole worldview. Rosa Linn (Armenia) is the quiet underdog who accidentally becomes a viral legend. Subwoolfer (Norway) is comic mystery with nightclub energy, and Mahmood & Blanco (Italy) are stylish, wounded, intensely modern pop drama.

The fandom signal in 2022 leaned hard toward Sweden’s “Hold Me Closer”, which won the OGAE poll. The same fan poll placed Italy’s “Brividi,” Spain’s “SloMo,” the Netherlands’ “De diepte,” and the UK’s “Space Man” behind it. That gives you a very useful RP split: the jury-world adored the polished emotion, while the fan-space also loved performance personality and pop impact. Meanwhile, “Snap” became the contest’s viral sleeper hit after Eurovision, which is exactly the sort of underdog-turned-global-song arc that makes a delegation feel alive beyond the final scorecard.

4) 2023 — Liverpool, United Kingdom: “United by Music” with a Ukraine frame

2023 was hosted in Liverpool at the M&S Bank Arena, with Alesha Dixon, Hannah Waddingham, Julia Sanina, and Graham Norton presenting. The contest was staged by the BBC on behalf of Ukraine’s broadcaster UA:PBC, because Ukraine could not safely host after winning in 2022. Liverpool wrapped the whole thing in a cultural layer: EuroFest, the Eurovision Village at Pier Head, the EuroClub at Camp and Furnace, and the opening ceremony at St George’s Hall. This was the first year of the Rest of the World vote, which matters a lot if you want a more international-feeling RP universe.

The stage design was inspired by togetherness, celebration, and community, with the shape of a wide hug at its core. It was huge, bright, and engineered for spectacle: a 450 m² stage with rotating LED panels, a giant LED floor, and a mountain of light. For RP, Liverpool is the year of “we are doing this for Ukraine, but also for the whole Eurofan world.” It is less about isolation and more about a giant shared room with grief, pride, and celebration all in the same air.

The final was won by Sweden’s Loreen with “Tattoo” on 583 points. Finland came second with “Cha Cha Cha”, then Israel, Italy, Norway, Ukraine, Belgium, Estonia, Australia, and Czechia rounded out the top ten. OGAE also ranked “Tattoo” first and “Cha Cha Cha” second, which is a very neat summary of the 2023 fandom split: polished mythic pop versus anarchic party chaos. Both songs also became major chart items, and “Tattoo” in particular turned into a post-show monster.

For RP, 2023 is where you get your most dramatic personalities. Loreen (Sweden) is the mystic queen: controlled, distant, almost priestly. Käärijä (Finland) is the neon goblin of the season — ecstatic, sweaty, emotional, impossible to ignore. Alessandra (Norway) is a warrior-princess with a blade of attitude. La Zarra (France) is glamour, poise, and mystery; Marco Mengoni (Italy) is veteran charisma and stage mastery; Teya & Salena (Austria) are the meme-savvy satire duo; Gustaph (Belgium) is elegant confidence with disco warmth; Blanca Paloma (Spain) is ritual art and dramatic stillness. If you want faction energy, 2023 basically gives you “Loreen’s cathedral” versus “Käärijä’s rave basement,” with everyone else choosing a side or pretending not to.

5) How to use the backstage world in your Janitor AI RP

Treat the arena as a network of zones rather than one stage. The Green Room is where reactions, tension, and social status become visible. The delegation bubble is where people disappear to breathe, gossip, panic, flirt, or crash. The hair-and-makeup area is where the real pre-show politics happen. The press area is where narratives are made. The stage crew corridors are the hidden engine room, and the crew’s timing is so tight that set changes become almost choreographed performances of their own. That structure is very useful for an open-world RP because it lets you jump between glamour, vulnerability, sabotage, friendship, and backstage chaos without ever leaving the contest universe.

For story dynamics, use three big emotional lanes: divas, chaos gremlins, and warriors/poets. Divas are your perfectionists and icons — the ones who live for camera angles, costume changes, and control. Chaos gremlins are the meme entries, comic acts, and anarchic performers who make the whole building laugh and then somehow end up beloved. Warriors/poets are the emotionally heavy acts: the singers with a cause, a wound, a message, or a haunting aesthetic. Eurovision works best when those three lanes collide in the Green Room, because that is where alliances form and rivalries become real.

6) The clean RP summary for 2021–2023

2021 gives you pandemic-era tension and survival energy in Rotterdam. 2022 gives you war-shadowed solidarity and political intensity in Turin. 2023 gives you a grand, emotional, transnational pop arena in Liverpool, with Ukraine at the heart of the story even though the contest is physically in the UK.

2024 — Malmö, Sweden: the year everything got weird, tense, and unforgettable

Malmö 2024 was held at the Malmö Arena in Sweden, hosted by Petra Mede and Malin Åkerman. The show kept the slogan “United by Music” and used a set by Florian Wieder with five movable LED cubes, a cross-shaped center, a backdrop screen, and the Green Room placed behind the backdrop screen. That setup matters for RP because it makes the arena feel like a sealed pressure chamber: everyone is always visible, but the real conversations happen just out of frame.

The winner was Nemo (Switzerland) with “The Code” on 591 points. Croatia’s Baby Lasagna came second with “Rim Tim Tagi Dim” and won the televote; the rest of the top ten were Ukraine, France, Israel, Ireland, Italy, Armenia, Sweden, and Portugal. In RP terms, 2024 is the year of the emotional fracture line: the contest looks glossy, but the room is full of protest, pressure, and people who know the whole world is watching.

The full final top 10 is: 1 Switzerland — Nemo — “The Code”, 2 Croatia — Baby Lasagna — “Rim Tim Tagi Dim”, 3 Ukraine — alyona alyona & Jerry Heil — “Teresa & Maria”, 4 France — Slimane — “Mon amour”, 5 Israel — Eden Golan — “Hurricane”, 6 Ireland — Bambie Thug — “Doomsday Blue”, 7 Italy — Angelina Mango — “La noia”, 8 Armenia — Ladaniva — “Jako”, 9 Sweden — Marcus & Martinus — “Unforgettable”, 10 Portugal — Iolanda — “Grito”.

The biggest scandal was Joost Klein’s disqualification. Reuters reported that Klein missed rehearsals after an “incident,” and later the Swedish investigation was closed without proving intent to cause serious fear; the EBU still stood by the disqualification, calling it a rules issue. For RP, this is the perfect “backstage blow-up” storyline: a candidate favorite gets pulled out of the final, the delegation is furious, and the whole arena turns into rumor weather.

There was also heavy pressure around Israel’s participation and the atmosphere in Malmö. Reuters reported more than 10,000 protesters in the city, and the year’s pages record complaints about harassment around delegations and press, plus a highly charged flag and security environment. That makes 2024 an excellent RP season for characters who are activists, diplomats, fearful rookies, or people trying to keep the music alive while the room is burning.

For your RP cast, the biggest 2024 characters are: Nemo as the elegant, dazzling outsider with a powerful concept-driven stage presence; Baby Lasagna as the loud, lovable underdog who looks like chaos but actually has a core of steel; Bambie Thug as gothic rebellion and anti-pop theatre; Eden Golan as the contested, hyper-scrutinized performer carrying political heat on every camera angle; Iolanda as quiet intensity and moral gravity; Angelina Mango as polished emotional pop royalty; and Joost Klein as the volatile festival gremlin whose charisma makes him impossible to ignore. That is an RP goldmine because every one of them changes the social weather in a different way. The songs that felt most loved beyond the scoreboard were “Rim Tim Tagi Dim” and “The Code”, with “Doomsday Blue” and “La noia” also standing out as fandom favorites. OGAE’s 2024 poll put Croatia first, then Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, and France, which is a neat shorthand for the year’s emotional temperature.

2025 — Basel, Switzerland: polished, tense, and politically explosive

Basel 2025 was held at St. Jakobshalle and hosted by Hazel Brugger, Sandra Studer, and Michelle Hunziker for the final. The stage was again designed by Florian Wieder, this time inspired by Switzerland’s mountains and linguistic diversity, with a central extension into the standing audience area and an LED arch around it. That is a great RP staging because it creates a “big arena, intimate runway” feeling: performers can dominate the whole room, but they are also exposed.

The winner was Austria’s JJ with “Wasted Love” on 436 points, and Austria also won the jury vote. Israel’s Yuval Raphael came second with 357 points and won the televote. The top ten were Austria, Israel, Estonia, Sweden, Italy, Greece, France, Albania, Ukraine, and Switzerland. In other words: one side of the room loved the grand operatic precision, the other side was pulled toward political tension and televote energy.

The 2025 top 10 is especially useful for RP because it gives you a very mixed social ecosystem: 1 Austria — JJ — “Wasted Love”, 2 Israel — Yuval Raphael — “New Day Will Rise”, 3 Estonia — Tommy Cash — “Espresso Macchiato”, 4 Sweden — KAJ — “Bara bada bastu”, 5 Italy — Lucio Corsi — “Volevo essere un duro”, 6 Greece — Klavdia — “Asteromata”, 7 France — Louane — “Maman”, 8 Albania — Shkodra Elektronike — “Zjerm”, 9 Ukraine — Ziferblat — “Bird of Pray”, 10 Switzerland — Zoë Më — “Voyage”.

The year was also reshaped by the fallout from 2024. After the Joost Klein mess, the EBU introduced a stricter duty of care setup and said behind-the-scenes filming of artists would require delegation approval. The 2025 flag policy was also tightened so artists could display only the flag of the country they represent in official settings such as the stage, Green Room, Turquoise Carpet, and Eurovision Village. For RP, that means fewer casual backstage cams, more controlled image management, and a lot more “who is allowed to say what, and where?” energy.

The Israel controversy in 2025 was massive. Reuters reported that Yuval Raphael said she was mentally preparing for protests, that the Turquoise Carpet opening ceremony was disrupted, and that police investigated a threatening gesture toward the delegation. Later, Reuters also reported that several broadcasters called for a broader discussion of Israel’s participation, and that Israel won the televote and finished second, prompting calls for a rework of the televoting system and an independent audit.

The EBU’s fact-checking arm later reported evidence that Israel’s government advertising machinery had run a cross-platform campaign encouraging people to vote up to the maximum allowed amount for Israel, while the EBU said the voting was still valid and robust. That is very useful for RP because it gives you a world where the music is real, but the battle around the music is also real and loud.

For RP personalities in 2025, the core cast plays like this: JJ is the dramatic, technically brilliant, emotionally loaded winner who feels half opera star, half confessional narrator; Yuval Raphael is resilient, wounded, and constantly under a spotlight she did not ask for; Tommy Cash is deadpan absurdist performance art in human form; Erika Vikman is high-voltage sensual pop chaos; KAJ are comic, communal, and deceptively sharp; Louane is polished mainstream elegance; Klavdia is mythic and still; Ziferblat bring a poetic, slightly dreamy edge; Shkodra Elektronike feel like art-pop insurgents; and Zoë Më reads as soft, intimate, and emotionally precise.

The songs that became the fandom magnets were “Bara bada bastu”, “Wasted Love”, “C’est la vie”, “Ich komme”, and “Serving”; OGAE ranked those five as its top picks. Commercially, “Espresso Macchiato”, “Bara bada bastu”, and “Wasted Love” all charted globally, which gives the 2025 scene a very modern “viral pop culture meets institutional crisis” feel.

2026 — Vienna, Austria: anniversary year, tighter rules, bigger drama

Vienna 2026 was held at the Wiener Stadthalle and hosted by Victoria Swarovski and Michael Ostrowski, with Emily Busvine as Green Room host. The stage design again came from Florian Wieder and was built around The Leaf, The Curved Line, and The Construct; the Green Room was connected to the stage by a walkway and styled after Viennese coffee houses. For RP, that is beautiful: the Green Room is no longer just a waiting area, it is basically a social corridor where alliances, gossip, and emotional collapse all happen in public.

The 2026 voting system changed again. The contest returned jury voting to the semi-finals, increased national juries from five to seven members, required at least two jurors aged 18–25, and cut the maximum votes per payment method to 10. The EBU also updated the rules to discourage disproportionate promotion campaigns by governments or third parties. That matters in RP because the year is not just “who sings best,” but “who is playing the game hardest.”

The winner was Bulgaria’s DARA with “Bangaranga” on 516 points, and she won both the jury and televote, the first act to do so since Portugal in 2017. The top ten were Bulgaria, Israel, Romania, Australia, Italy, Finland, Denmark, Moldova, Ukraine, and Greece. The final also had a minor technical issue during Czechia’s performance, which the EBU did not allow to be repeated.

The 2026 top 10 in RP form is: 1 Bulgaria — DARA — “Bangaranga”, 2 Israel — Noam Bettan — “Michelle”, 3 Romania — Alexandra Căpitănescu — “Choke Me”, 4 Australia — Delta Goodrem — “Eclipse”, 5 Italy — Sal Da Vinci — “Per sempre sì”, 6 Finland — Linda Lampenius & Pete Parkkonen — “Liekinheitin”, 7 Denmark — Søren Torpegaard Lund — “Før vi går hjem”, 8 Moldova — Satoshi — “Viva, Moldova!”, 9 Ukraine — Leléka — “Ridnym”, 10 Greece — Akylas — “Ferto”. The political atmosphere was even sharper than 2025. Reuters reported that five countries boycotted over Israel’s participation, that the contest started under a shadow of Gaza-related protest, and that security was tight in Vienna. Reuters also reported pro-Palestinian protests, while Israel’s entrant Noam Bettan heard boos at the semi-final but still advanced and finished second overall. In RP terms, the arena is now a battlefield between the idea of “unity” and the reality of international outrage.

The boycotts and withdrawals were not abstract: Reuters reported that Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Slovenia, and Iceland all moved against participation because of Israel’s place in the contest. That meant 35 participating countries, the smallest field since 2003, and a contest atmosphere that felt historically strained even before the first note.

For RP archetypes, 2026 gives you a great spread. DARA is the triumphant, kinetic star with a folklore-core anthem and a “small country, big impact” aura; Noam Bettan is the contested, highly visible second-place figure carrying geopolitical weight; Delta Goodrem feels like glamour with mainstream polish and grown-up star power; Sal Da Vinci is old-soul Italian drama; Søren Torpegaard Lund is precise, earnest, and quietly competitive; Leléka reads as atmospheric and rooted; Satoshi is the absurdist national-brand showman; Akylas is sleek and performance-driven; Alexandra Căpitănescu is emotionally sharp and vocally intense.

The songs fans loved most in 2026 were “Liekinheitin”, “Før vi går hjem”, “Eclipse”, “My System”, and “Jalla”; OGAE ranked Finland, Denmark, Australia, Sweden, and Cyprus as the top five fan picks. That gives the year a very clean RP contrast: the public narrative is political, but the fan-room is still obsessed with polished performance, weird hooks, and memorable staging.

The RP structure that works best across 2024–2026

If you want this to feel like a real open-world Eurovision, the most useful spaces are the stage, the Green Room, the press area, the Turquoise Carpet, the delegation zone, and the Eurovision Village/EuroClub social orbit. The stage is where the public myth is made; the Green Room is where rivalries and friendships harden; the press area is where the story becomes a headline; the carpet is where image management happens; and the delegation zone is where people finally breathe, flirt, cry, or start plotting. That is the whole game.

For the tone of the RP, the cleanest emotional map is: 2024 = crash-and-storm year, 2025 = polished crisis year, 2026 = anniversary war-zone year. That gives you enough flexibility to run drama, friendship arcs, backstage politics, performer rivalries, press leaks, and alliances that shift from year to year without losing the Eurovision feel.