The Eurovision Song Contest 2025 will be held in the St. Jakobshalle in Basel. Switzerland’s third-largest city was able to prevail against its competitor Geneva, as announced by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the host of the mega event. The final is scheduled for May 17.
“For example, the suitability of the hall for the show-specific requirements, the creative ideas for the side events, the financial resources made available, the cultural offering as well as sustainability and security concepts were taken into account,” said the public media company SRG. In total, around 100 criteria were taken into account.
The St. Jakobshalle (front) has space for 12,000 people – the show will also be broadcast to the nearby St. Jakob-Park stadium. Image: Georgios Kefalas/KEYSTONE/picture alliance
The musical spectacle usually takes place in the country of the previous year’s winner. Nemo from Switzerland won the 2024 ESC in Malmö, Sweden, with the song “The Code”. The non-binary person, who defines himself as neither man nor woman, addressed his own career path in the song.
In the overall ranking based on the votes of the juries in the EBU member countries and the audience, Nemo came first, ahead of Croatia and Ukraine. The German singer Isaak came 12th.
Took the ESC victory 2024 on a turntable: NemoImage: Jens Büttner/dpa/picture alliance
The ESC motto in Basel is: “Overcoming borders”. The city has been demonstrating how this works for decades: Basel itself borders directly on Germany and France – and the communities in the border triangle work so closely together that residents hardly notice the borders anymore. “The ESC connects and inspires, across all borders,” the city wrote in its application, recommending itself with its “cosmopolitan scene”. The motto also fits the ESC, which has recently been increasingly affected by political tensions.
The German border region also wants to benefit from the ESC – for example the small town of Lörrach, which is less than ten kilometers from Basel. The non-partisan mayor Jörg Lutz had campaigned for the ESC on his own doorstep: “With the Eurovision Song Contest, we are turning the border triangle into the 40-country corner,” said Lutz in a video. This would mean that many guests could stay overnight in Lörrach. In Basel, hotel prices – even before the ESC organizers’ decision – had shot up to several hundred euros per night, even for simple accommodation.
