The EBU, via the official Eurovision website, have formally put out a call to fans asking if they might have any footage from the 1956 and 1964 contests which have become lost media. The only piece of the 1964 contest that survives is the winning performance by Gigliola Cinquetti which was discovered by Finland's broadcaster Yle.
The EBU is hoping to find:
Full recordings
Partial footage
Home recordings
Photographic or film material
This call comes in the wake of the 70th edition of the contest, as the EBU hopes to celebrate the full history of the show.
[Source]
"A global hunt for the missing editions of the Eurovision Song Contest," Eurovision.com.
In 1964, the Eurovision Song Contest was heavily protested, as many members of the public did not believe that the right-wing dictatorships of Spain and Portugal should be allowed to take part. One man even took to the stage holding a banner that read "Boycott Franco and Salazar," but he was quickly removed from stage.
Estonia's 5MIINUST and Puuluup (2024) now holds the record for longest song title--by number of characters--of a song sung at the Eurovision Song Contest with "(nendest) narkootikumidest ei tea me (küll) midagi."
However, the longest title by word count still remains Nora Nova's 1964 song "Man Gewöhnt Sich So Schnell An Das Schöne."
In regards to characters, the 2024 song is 50 individual characters and the 1964 song is just shy of that at 42.
[Sources]
Eurovision Fact #45.
"Behind Estonia’s lyres and sunglasses: It must be 5MIINUST x Puuluup," Eurovision.tv.
Following the 1990 win of Italian entry Toto Cutugno, Italy had the honor of hosting Eurovision for the second time. They selected Cutugno and previous Italian winner Gigliola Cinquetti (1964) to host the show. The duo spoke in Italian for a majority of the contest.
Austria only finished in the top three once in the 20th century. This happened with their 1966 win thanks to Udo Jurgens. Udo placed sixth in 1964 and fourth in 1965 before finally securing the win.
The original plan for the interval act during the grand final of the cancelled 2020 Eurovision Song Contest was to have seven former winners perform a medley of their winning songs in various locations around the host city of Rotterdam.
The original line up of former winners consisted of:
Gigliola Cinquetti (Italy 1964) singing "Non Ho L'età," Lenny Kuhr (Netherlands, 1969) singing "De Troubadour," Getty Kaspers of Teach-In (Netherlands, 1975) singing "Ding-A-Dong," Sandra Kim (Belgium, 1986) singing "J'aime La Vie," Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan (Ireland, 1994) singing "Rock 'n' Roll Kids," and Alexander Rybak (Norway, 2009) singing "Fairytale."
In 2021, this was replaced with the "Rock the Roof" event, which saw former winners performing atop the roofs of famous venues in Rotterdam.
Many of the winners set to perform in 2020 returned for the rooftop concerts, but Gigliola Cinquetti, Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan, and Alexander Rybak we unable to return. The three acts were replaced by Helena Paparizou (Greece, 2005) singing "My Number One," Lordi (Finland 2006) singing "Hard Rock Hallelujah," and Måns Zelmerlöw (Sweden, 2015) singing "Heros."
