The Eurovision Song Contest 2023 in numbers

On Sunday 7 May, the highly anticipated Turquoise Carpet Opening Ceremony started the week of Eurovision. Hosted at Liverpool's historic St George's Hall, the event saw Liverpool's own Sam Quek and Ukrainian Eurovision commentator Timur Miroshnychenko welcome all 37 delegates to the city with 400 of the world’s media and thousands of fans lining the over 100 metre carpet.

The staging for the 9 live shows at Liverpool Arena is truly monumental, with over 600 rigging points, 140 tons of steel ground support structure, and one kilometre of additional steel truss work being added to the arena. The event will feature 8 miles of cabling for lighting, sound, video and SFX, over 2,000 specialist lighting fixtures, 200 custom staging decks, 950 square metres of staging for the main stage, and 500 square metres of staging for the green room. 2,000 metres of secure fencing will be used to keep the event safe and secure.

The lighting at the contest will be truly breathtaking, with 165,000 channels of lighting control across 3 operators, 23,700 individual light sources, and 2,500 automated state of the art colour-changing robotic lights. The lighting team will use 9 consoles to run 28,000 lighting cues, while 15 follow spots will be operated by 10 professionals and 5 theatre-technology students from LIPA & Cheshire College.

For sound, there are 150 microphones and over 1,200 individual streams of audio. With so many different acts and performers taking part, the sound team will ensure that every note is heard loud and clear.

Power is another crucial component of the contest, with one megawatt of UPS power, 60 miles of cabling around the arena, 150 distribution boards, and 5,000 man-hours dedicated to power works.

The broadcast of the Contest will be watched by over 160 million viewers worldwide, with over 8 hours of live TV and 50 live feeds. 29 commentators will broadcast live from the arena and with less than 50 seconds to strike and set between performances, the experienced broadcast team will ensure the show runs smoothly.

The hair and makeup teams are also hard at work to make sure that every performer looks their best. The team has used over 100 wigs and hairpieces, 1,000 litres of hairspray, over 3,000 makeup brushes and 5,000 hairpins to create stunning looks for each performer.

The costume departments have also been working tirelessly, with 150 metres of costume rails full of costumes - equivalent to three Olympic-sized swimming pools in length. The departments have manufactured 482 costumes over the three shows using 20,000 metres of thread, and 47 of them took 250 metres of fabric to manufacture. All the manufacturing was done in the UK and Ukraine, showcasing the international nature of the event.

You can listen to all 37 songs of Eurovision 2024 via your favourite streaming service or watch the music videos on our YouTube channel.

The Eurovision Song Contest will take place in Malmö, Sweden on Tuesday 7 May (First Semi-Final), Thursday 9 May (Second Semi-Final) and Saturday 11 May (Grand Final) 2024.

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