Switzerland 2025: Shortlist of Host Cities down to final two

19 July 2024 at 10:28 CEST

Nemo performing The Code for Switzerland at the Grand Final at Malmö Arena Corinne Cumming / EBU

Swiss broadcaster SRG has confirmed that it is down to the final two candidates in determining the Host City of the 69th Eurovision Song Contest - Basel and Geneva.

Basel 2025 or Geneva 2025?

Those are our two options now that the Swiss broadcaster has whittled down the initial batch of bids to a final two. One of these two cities will host the Eurovision Song Contest in Switzerland in May 2025. The final decision will be made in late August.

Interested cities had until the end of June to submit their bids to SRG on the basis of an extensive catalogue of requirements.

Key to the assessment of the bids submitted were criteria such as arena concept, public transport links, sustainability, available hotel accommodation, security and waste disposal concepts, investment, event experience, and support and motivation from the city as a whole, as well as many other factors.

The bids submitted by the cities Basel, Geneva, Zurich and Berne/Biel have been carefully reviewed by a Eurovision Song Contest core team working group over the last few weeks and further expanded on in on-site meetings with delegations from the cities.

The assessment comprised quantitative and qualitative criteria, as well as applicant cities' commitment and creative ideas, with the aim of making the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 an event to remember.

The careful assessment of the submitted bids was supervised by the accounting and consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The ESC 2025 Steering Committee headed up by SRG Director General Gilles Marchand followed the recommendation of the core team and opted for the two city bids that performed best and will now be further consolidated: Basel and Geneva.

Switzerland wins the 68th Eurovision Song Contest with the song The Code by Nemo Corinne Cumming / EBU

The 69th Eurovision Song Contest heads to Switzerland in 2025 thanks to Nemo's win in Malmö with The Code. The song triumphed in the Grand Final with a score of 591 points, giving Switzerland its third Eurovision win in the history at the Contest.

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

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