Six on Stage Blog

  • A brief hiatus

    Despite a pretty devastating cyberattack, Six on Stage was back online within a month.

    A zero day exploit in the hosting system that powers our server – rather than the site itself – enabled hackers to delete the entire site and issue a £5k ransomware demand for its return. As that’s about a decade’s running costs for the site, and there would be guarantee of actually getting the site back from them, it was not an option.

    Thankfully, we were able to supplement the last backup available with pages from the Internet Archive, and took the opportunity to add in more 2026 data at the same time.

    There shouldn’t be anything visibly missing, although some of the data you don’t see is gone for good. That is mainly source attribution for the last couple of year, as it’s useful to keep a record of where a particular fact came from in case it is queried at a later date. If you do notice anything wrong, please, as always, get in touch.

    The only thing left to restore are the earlier posts on this blog, which has moved to a new subdomain. Again, the Internet Archive is the source. What a great resource that is.

    Thank you to everyone who sent supportive messages during quite a stressful period, and to those who supported the site financially through Ko-fi – it’s much appreciated. Needless to say, we are now paying for full server backups!

  • Let’s meet the 2025 jurors

    As is now traditional, the names of the jurors of the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest were revealed following the Grand Final. So, as is now traditional, let’s see who they were.

    There were 184 jurors this year, 5 from each country taking part in the Contest, except for Estonia, who had 4 (presumably because of last-minute unavailability).

    Of those 184, 24 had been jurors at least once before. Four of them had been jurors twice before: Croatia’s Monika Lelas Halambek (also their spokesperson in 2019); San Marino’s Fabrizio Raggi; Serbia’s Ivana Peters (writer of their 2016 entry); and Sweden’s Anna Charlotta Gunnarson. By far the most experienced was Michael Cederberg, also from Sweden, who was on his sixth go, having been a juror in 2009, 2010, 2014, 2017 and 2022 – twice as Chair.

    Previous artists comprised 13 of this year’s jurors (hopefully they didn’t go to dinner together). They were Spain’s Anabel Conde; Estonia’s Ott Lepland and Elina Nechayeva; Luxembourg’s 1971 entrant Monique Melsen; Željko Vukčević from Montenegro’s D mol; Serbia’s Bojana Stamenov; Eva Boto and Ana Soklič from Slovenia; Ochman from Poland; Andrew Lambrou, who represented Cyprus, and Simone Dow from the band Voyager on Australia’s jury; and Tural from Azerbaijan’s duo TuralTuranX.

    Broadcasters often recruit jurors for their national final artists and 2025 was no exception, with at least 10 performers taking part as jurors. These were Aidan Cassar from Malta; Mia Negovetić from Croatia; Theo (formerly Theoz) from Sweden; Iris from Ladybug and Reidun Sæther from Norway; Mel Ömana from Spain; Bjarni Arason from Iceland; Jon Vitezič from Slovenia; Vasilisa Subotic from Germany; and Simon from Armenia.

    (Update: Six on Stage national final data is patchy beyond the last couple of years so thanks to Martin Faulkner for pointing out that Carolin Fortenbacher was also a previous national finalist – and only a few votes short of being in the entrant – for Germany in 2008.)

    Of the remaining jurors, a number have previous connections to Eurovision. Danish juror Mads Enggaard Jørgensen has been a Viewing Room Producer for several Contests, as well as staging performances for Azerbaijan and Denmark and singing backing vocals a couple of times.

    Armenia’s Lilit Navasardyan has written two of her countries’ entries and provided backing vocals for one of those, LoveWave, in 2016.

    And as well as being a house dancer for Melodifestivalen, Sweden’s Kenny Lantz has danced at Eurovision for Sweden, Switzerland and Cyprus. In 2024, he was on stage helping to operate Nemo‘s spinning disc!

  • The spokes with the most

    Two of this year’s jury spokespeople have risen from joint 8th to joint 7th in the list of those who have presented their country’s scores most often.

    Loukas Hamatsos gave Cyprus’s scores for the 12th time, having first done so way back in 2000, while Andri Xhahu made it the 12th Content in a row where he has given the scores for Albania. They tie with Solveig Herlin who gave Finland’s scores almost every year from 1982 to 1996.

    They still have some way to go to reach the top of the leaderboard:

    1. Colin Berry (UK 24 times)
    2. Michel Stocker (Switzerland 20 times)
    3. Sverre Christopherson (Norway 18 times)

    2024’s spokespeople were made up of a few groups. A handful haven’t had a Eurovision role before, but almost all had at least a Eurovision-adjacent connection.

    Returning spokespeople

    10 of the 36 spokespeople (Netherlands having decided not to present their votes) had performed the role before.

    In addition to Loukas and Andri, these included Lorella Flego (4 times for Slovenia, including this year), Ingvild Helljesen (4 times for Norway, having stepped in at the last minute this year), Philipp Hansa (5 times in a row for Austria), and Radka Rosická (her 5th time for Czechia).

    Ina Müller gave the scores for Germany for a second time – that’s once less than one-letter-different Tina Müller has given them from Denmark.

    National finalists

    Three spokespeople took part in their countries’ national selections for 2024. These included Matt Blxck from Malta and Denise Bertozzi who took part in San Marino’s selection as Kida.

    Previous entrants

    As has become traditional, a number of former competing artists returned to give their countries’ scores. There were 15 this year, with three Contest winners among them.

    Five spokespeople had taken part in 2023 – Mimicat, Brunette, Danny from Voyager, Andrejs from Sudden Lights and Monika Linkytė.

    Konstrakta returned from 2022, having also taken part in Serbia’s national final this year.

    The returning winners were Jamala from Ukraine, Paul Harrington, who won for Ireland 30 years ago this year and was a juror in 2009, and Helena Paparizou, who was previous Greece’s spokesperson in 2015.

    An honourable mention here also to Poland’s Viki Gabor, who won the Junior Eurovision Song Contest for them in 2019.

  • Guess who’s back, back again?

    Last time we explored which of this year’s lead artists have been involved before in the Eurovision Song Contest. However, one of the drivers of Six on Stage is to highlight the contributions of backing performers, so it’s time to look at which of the class of 2024’s other performers – dancers, backing vocalists and people dressed in bird costumes – have been involved before.

    Once…

    Seven backing performers have each had one previous appearance at Eurovision.

    Three of Sweden’s dancers – this year’s Melodifestivalen house dancers, in fact – have taken part previously: Daniel Koivunen for Russia in 2011 (he was on a treadmill with Robin Bengtsson in the national final but didn’t go to Eurovision), and both Pauline Eddeborn and Kim Pastor for Malta’s Destiny in 2021.

    Aiko’s off-stage singer Nikol Držmíšková performed the same role for We Are Domi in 2022, while Saba’s backing vocalist and Sand co-writer Melanie Wehbe was on stage with Michael Rice in 2019. Íris Hólm Jónsdóttir, who you’ll be surprised to hear is part of Team Iceland, previously did backing vocals in 2015 alongside Hera Björk.

    The other dancer to have appeared once before is Jesse Wijnans, returning for Finland one year after doing the Cha Cha Cha with Käärijä.

    Twice…

    Three people have had supporting roles on two previous occasions – one of them as a winner.

    Erasmia Markidi is providing backing vocals for Greece, having done so in 2017 and 2019. The fourth Melfest house dancer, Kenny Lantz, is finally on stage for Sweden – he previously danced alongside other Swedes for Cyprus’s Tamta in 2019 and for Switzerland’s Remo Forrer in 2023.

    And returning from 2016’s winning team is Oleksandra Makarovska, once again singing for Ukraine, as she also did last year.

    Four times…

    Pamela Bezzina, a singer and vocal coach who has taken part as a contestant in Malta’s national final numerous times, is this year providing backing vocals for them for a fifth time.

    She was on stage (as then required) in 2010, 2011 and 2016, and also part of the team in 2016 and 2018. In 2014, instead of singing she took part as a member of Malta’s professional jury.

    Seven times!

    Victoria Chalkitis is making her eighth appearance at Eurovision with off-stage backing vocals for Cyprus. She’s also serving as Silia Kapsis‘s vocal coach.

    Victoria is an incredibly experienced backing vocalist, with those seven appearances stretching right back to 1993, when she sang for the first time for Greece. She joined them again in 1994 (alongside her father, Harris Chalkitis), 2008, 2012 and 2018.

    She was part of the onstage team for Belarus in 2005 and would have sung vocals for Moldova in 2020 if the contest hadn’t been cancelled – she ended up supporting Natalia Gordienko in 2021 instead. Like Pamela Bezzina, she has been a national juror too, for Greece in 2022.

    With a gap of 31 years once she’s sung for Cyprus next week, Victoria is second only to Ralph Siegel (34 years) as the performer with the longest gap between their first and most recent appearance at Eurovision.

    Twelve times!

    An update to this blog post as another backing singer has come to light who immediately knocks Victoria off the top spot: the legendary Dea Norberg! Dea performed backing vocals for Austria, now the fifth country she has represented at Eurovision after her native Sweden, Malta, Azerbaijan and Australia (for Dami Im!).

    It’s fitting she returned the year we celebrate the 25th anniversary of Take Me To Your Heaven as that was her first, victorious, appearance on the Eurovision stage. Returning this year moves her up to 5th in the table of longest gaps between first and last appearance, and moves her to joint 4th in the list of most countries represented.

    She remains 3rd behind only brothers Georges and Michel Costa for most songs performed at Eurovision with 13!

  • Which of this year’s acts have been involved before?

    The class of 2024 have been selected and their songs confirmed with the EBU – but not all of them are newcomers to the Eurovision Song Contest. Seven of the artists taking part this year were already part of the Six on Stage database from a previous contribution.

    1. Hera Björk

    By some margin the best known to Eurovision fans is Hera Björk from Iceland. As well as representing her character as singer and co-writer wi`th Je Ne Sais Quoi in 2010, she has provided backing vocals on multiple occasions (2008, 2009 and 2015) and been a vocal coach. She also came close to representing Denmark in 2009 with Someday.

    2. Natalia Barbu

    Our other returning artist this year is Moldova’s Natalia Barbu, who also performed Fight for Moldova in 2007.

    3 & 4. Zaachariaha Fielding & Michael Ross

    The duo Electric Fields are another fan favourite, coming to prominence in 2019 when they finshed second in Australia Decides with 2000 and Whatever. While they are finally representing Australia this year, their success in that national final saw them announce the Australian jury’s 12 points in 2019.

    5 & 6. Marcus Gunnarsen & Martinus Gunnarsen

    Although they’re flying the flag for Sweden this year, twins Marcus & Martinus are Norwegian and it was for Norway that they revealed the jury scores in 2017, when they were just 15. (We’re going to have to do another post about the times a country had more than one spokesperson…) Earlier the same year they had performed an interval act during Finland’s national final.

    7. Raiven

    Raiven took part in the public selection for Eurovision three times in Slovenia and this year finally makes it to Malmö via internal selection. But back in 2018 – between her second and third attempts – she was chair of the national jury and, unanimously with her colleaogues, gave her top score to Dance You Off.

    An honourable mention too to Kaleen from Austria, whose previous roles have included being a creative director at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, acting as an artist stand-in during Eurovision rehearsals, and being a dancer and choreographer for interval acts in 2018.