Leitln, Wir Ham Den Schas Gewonnen
Austria will host the Eurovision Song Contest in 2026: a boon for whichever city it is held in, if not the government and public broadcaster that has to stage it
Servus!
If the happiest person in the land right now is JJ, the unhappiest—or at least the most weary—might be Markus Marterbauer. The former, real name Johannes Pietsch, won the Eurovision Song Contest for Austria on Saturday night with his pop-opera crossover smash “Wasted Love.” The song was the favorite of the national juries, gaining 258 points in the jury vote including 12 points from Belgium, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. It was less popular among the viewing public, but won enough points from televoters, 178 in all, to hold off an organized get-out-the-vote campaign for the Israeli entrant and snatch the trophy.
Coming down to a duel between Israel and Austria, the final outcome was the best the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organizes the annual contest, could have hoped for. An Israeli win at this juncture on the back of televoting alone would have broken the Eurovision Song Contest. Organizing the event in Israel in a middle of (or perhaps shortly after) a war would have been a logistical and security nightmare; multiple countries—Spain, for one, and perhaps Belgium too—would likely have boycotted the event due to Israel’s conduct of its military counteroperation in Gaza. A contest in neutral Austria is, then, a gift to the EBU.
Before JJ had even touched down in Vienna on Sunday evening, various cities in Austria were already making their case for hosting the contest, which will be held over several nights in May 2026. Graz, Austria’s second city, is interested, as is Innsbruck, which hosted the Winter Olympic Games in 1964 and 1976 and may have excess hotel capacity outside of the ski season. Other interested towns and cities include Oberwart in Burgenland and Linz and Wels in Upper Austria; Klagenfurt in Carinthia and Salzburg less so.
In the end, it is likely that only Vienna has what it takes to host the Eurovision Song Contest. It hosted the event as recently as 10 years ago, and thus has the experience and muscle memory. It has the venue, namely the Wiener Stadthalle where the 2015 contest was staged. It has an international airport with two runways and sufficient rail connections. It has an excellent public transport network. It has the hotels, gastronomy, and tourist attractions. And that’s before you get to the fact that Vienna is an international city, home to the public broadcaster, the ORF, and the locus for cultural and LGBTQ life in Austria. Other cities in Austria have some of these qualities—but not all of them.
The Eurovision Song Contest would be an economic boon for whichever Austrian city ended up hosting it. Per the country’s secretary of state for tourism Elisabeth Zehetner, the 2015 contest put €30 million in Wien’s coffers and brought 100,000 people to Austria’s capital. There are also intangible benefits to a city hosting Eurovision like international press coverage and having picture postcard images of your city beamed into the homes of millions of Europeans, many of whom will be prospective holiday makers. Perhaps organizers will decide in the end that Graz needs that boost more than Vienna does.
But the actual act of staging the contest has to be paid for, which brings us back to Marterbauer. The finance minister unveiled his first budget last week, which includes €6.4 billion in savings in 2025 in order to begin the work of bringing Austria’s budget deficit back down below 3 percent of GDP. The ORF, which would be the host broadcaster, had its income stream, the household levy, frozen in March until 2029, meaning it needs to save €220 million over the next three years while, it would now seem, spending a likely €20 million of its own money staging the week-long contest. Perhaps Marterbauer and ORF general director Roland Weißmann wish they too had voted for Israel 20 times.
Bis bald!
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As a duel British Austrian citizen ( Nazi persecution) I might have to consider coming to cheer on Austria next year. I not certain if countries like to win, does it cost more to host than the benefits you get. Well done JJ