The show before the show: This is how glamorously Malmö Basel hands over the ESC
The ESC 2025 begins in January: Then Malmö symbolically hands over the ESC to Basel. The event will be organized as an event and broadcast live on the Eurovision network – Basel will have the opportunity to present itself to an audience of millions for the first time.
Liverpool handed over this key – here it can be seen in front of the Royal Liver Building – to Malmö as the ESC’s successor host city. It is full of symbolism.
Bild: Anthony Devlin/Getty Images
The ESC 2025 doesn’t take place until May. But in January, Basel will have its first opportunity to present itself as the host city of the world’s largest music competition, in front of a potential audience of millions. Then the so-called handover ceremony takes place. Basel receives the symbolic key to the Eurovision Song Contest from Malmö, probably from Katrin Stjernfeldt Jammeh herself, the mayor of Sweden’s third largest city. The show will be recorded live and broadcast worldwide via the Eurovision TV signal.
Basel still has to set a date. “Basically, this event will take place in the last week of January in the host city,” says the tender documents for the ESC 2025. For the host city, it is “the perfect opportunity to open the ESC season”. Basel has to organize the handover together with SRG as host broadcaster of the ESC 2025.
The appointment does not necessarily have to be on a weekend. Malmö carried out the handover on January 30, a Tuesday. Tabitha Walter from the Basel Presidential Department wrote on request: “The date and location are still being determined.” It is clear that January 27th is out of the question for Basel – then Vogel Gryff is.
Handover of the baton in the town hall, cathedral or city casino?
Cities are free to choose the venue. The European Broadcast Union (EBU), which organizes the ESC with the respective host broadcaster, does not make any specifications. In Malmö, those responsible invited people to the city hall. In January 2023, when Liverpool received the ESC key from Turin, the handover of the baton was held at St. George Hall. The neoclassical building from the 19th century has long served as a location for events and concerts. The Liverpool Arena was used for the ESC shows themselves.
In Basel, as in Malmö, the town hall would be an option, but also the cathedral, St. Martin’s Church or the city casino. Tabitha Walter from ESC Project Communications doesn’t want to reveal any favorites. What is clear, however, is that the event is not public.
The handover ceremony is also of interest to the international audience because of the second part: the draw of the participating countries for the two semi-finals. Only the host country is seeded for the final, as are the “Big Five”, the five largest EBU contributors Germany, England, France, Spain and Italy. The other nations have to survive the semi-finals.
A key as a reminder of Ukraine
The host cities are allowed to design the symbolic key for the handover ceremony individually. It is not yet known what the copy that Basel will receive will look like. The city of Malmö has not yet released any details.
Malmö invited people to the handover in the magnificent city hall.
Image: zvg
Liverpool chose a design by Neil Keating, a local artist, to design the key to Malmö. He decided on an anchor-shaped key that was around 30 centimeters in size and combined various symbols in it. The curved arms form a heart, the two ends are designed as the heads of the Liver Bird, the mythological symbolic bird of Liverpool.
The shaft, in turn, is formed by the submarine from the video clip of the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine”, the city’s most famous export product. It owes its title as a UNESCO City of Music to this. The record that is incorporated into the upper end of the anchor alludes to this award.
Basel’s key could be a Basel staff
The anchor shape is reminiscent of Liverpool’s twin city Odessa. The metropolis on the Black Sea has an anchor in its coat of arms. The fact that the key is mainly blue and yellow can be explained by the fact that Ukraine was originally supposed to host the ESC 2023. Because of Russia’s invasion of the country, the EBU moved the competition to Liverpool.
It is quite possible that Basel will present the ESC successor city with a key in the form of a Basel staff in January 2026. Local artists can already think about it.
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