Eurovision 1964: Copenhagen

The 1964 contest was held in an amusement park. Denmark, the holder, put it in the concert hall inside Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens, in front of 800 people. Two things happened there that had never happened at the contest before: someone used it for a political protest, and someone won it by a distance that has never been matched.

Who was missing, and who was new

Sweden stayed away. Its performers’ union was on strike, and the broadcaster could not send an entry.

Portugal took its place in the sixteen, competing for the first time. It did not go well: Portugal became the first country to score nothing on its debut.

There were other firsts in the line-up. The Dutch singer Anneke Grönloh, who was of Indonesian descent, was the first performer at the contest with non-European ancestry. And Spain sent a trio — the first act with three people on stage.

Switzerland’s Anita Traversi had been here in 1960. A hundred or so journalists and photographers covered the event, and a 41-piece orchestra played.

The man with the banner

Switzerland had just finished singing when a man walked onto the stage holding up a banner. It read “Boycot Franco & Salazar” — the dictators of Spain and Portugal, both of whose countries were competing that night.

Viewers at home saw very little of it. The director cut to a shot of the scoreboard and held it there until a technician had taken the man off. Then the show carried on.

A second bow

Italy’s Gigliola Cinquetti sang “Non ho l’età”. The hall’s reaction was so loud, and went on for so long, that she was let back on stage to take a second bow — something performers at the contest simply weren’t given.

British television repeated her performance the next afternoon, unscheduled.

The result

The scoring was the same idea as before with different numbers: each jury gave five, three and one points to its top three.

Cinquetti finished with 49. The United Kingdom’s Matt Monro, in second place, had 17. No winner has ever been further ahead of the field in proportion: almost three times the score of the runner-up.

Monaco was third. At the bottom, four countries had nothing: Portugal on its debut, and Germany, Switzerland and Yugoslavia, each scoring zero for the first time.

Nobody left empty-handed, though. At the party afterwards, every one of the sixteen acts was given a silver trophy.