1969 Eurovision Song Contest
| Eurovision Song Contest 1969 | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Dates | |
| Final | 29 March 1969 |
| Host | |
| Venue |
Teatro Real Madrid, Spain |
| Presenter(s) | Laurita Valenzuela |
| Conductor | Augusto Algueró |
| Director | Ramón Díez |
| Executive supervisor | Clifford Brown |
| Host broadcaster | Televisión Española (TVE) |
| Interval act | "La España diferente" film |
| Participants | |
| Number of entries | 16 |
| Debuting countries | None |
| Returning countries | None |
| Withdrawing countries |
 Austria
|
|
|
| Vote | |
| Voting system | Each country had 10 jury members who each cast one vote for their favourite song |
| Nul points | None |
| Winning song | |
The Eurovision Song Contest 1969 was the 14th in the series.
Four countries (the United Kingdom, Spain, the Netherlands and France) won the contest, the first time ever a tie-break situation had occurred. However, there was no rule at the time to cover such an eventuality, so all four countries were declared joint winners.
France's win was their fourth. France became the first country to win the contest four times. The Netherlands' win was their third. Spain and the United Kingdom each won for the second time. And it was the first time that any country (Spain, in this case) had a winning ESC entry two years in a row.
The venue selected to host the 1969 contest was the Teatro Real, an opera house located in Madrid. The theatre reopened in 1966 as a concert theatre and the main concert venue of the Spanish National Orchestra and the RTVE Symphony Orchestra. The final featured an onstage metal sculpture created by surrealist Spanish artist, Salvador Dalí.
The surrealist Spanish artist Salvador Dalí was responsible for designing the publicity material for the 1969 contest as well as the metal sculpture which was used on stage.
It was the first time that the contest resulted in a tie for first place, with four countries each gaining 18 votes. Since there was at the time no rule to cover such an eventuality, all four countries were declared joint winners. This caused an unfortunate problem concerning the medals due to be distributed to the winners as there were not enough to go round, so that only the singers received their medals on the night: the songwriters, to some disgruntlement, were not awarded theirs until after the date of the contest.
Had the later tie-break rule been in place (the country receiving the highest score from any other country, as used in 1991), the Netherlands would have won, having received 6 points from France. United Kingdom would then have been runner up, having received 5 points from Sweden. On the other hand, with the present tie-break rule been in place (i.e. the song receiving votes from the most countries, then the song receiving the most high votes in case of another tie), France would have been the overall winner, with Spain in 2nd place. Both countries received votes from 9 countries, but France received 4 points from 2 countries whereas Spain received 3 points as their highest vote.
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Wikipedia