hey say you never forget your first time, and Paul Jordan is no exception. It was a Saturday night, 15 May 1993, to be precise. Downstairs at his family home in Peterborough, his mum and dad were holding a dinner party. Their son, meanwhile, had sneaked into his parents’ bedroom, desperate not to attract the attention of the grown-ups. A few hours later, emotions overwhelmed him. His dad came up to check on his son and when the bedroom door burst open, their eyes met as the credits rolled on the small television set. The Eurovision Song Contest was over, and after a nail-biting finish to voting, the United Kingdom’s contestant had missed out on first place in the final round. What started as a childhood obsession for Jordan later became all-consuming. It was the subject of his undergraduate dissertation, closely followed by a PhD on how different countries attribute their own meaning to the contest. He joined the competition’s comms team for a while, earning the nickname “Dr Eurovision” for turning the pop culture phenomenon into an intellectual pursuit. Twenty-seven years later, clutching a glass of prosecco in his Northampton living room, the 36-year-old laughs as he retells the story via Zoom to a group of fellow Eurovision fanatics. “When he heard me cheering,” says Jordan, “Dad just assumed I was watching Match of the Day.” It’s a memory that resonates with his friends who have logged in from across Europe for their regular lockdown catch-up: Simon in Brussels, Elaine in Dunfermline and Dan in rural south Wales. Each has their own similar tale to tell of watching for the first time. But this digital get-together isn’t just for reminiscing. It’s 7.45pm and in a few minutes the opening titles of their beloved Eurovision will appear on their screens once again. Except this year’s contest in Rotterdam has been cancelled due to Covid-19; the 2020 instalment was due to take place on 16 May. For superfans across Europe and beyond, this is simply a minor detail that they refuse to let stand in their way. It’s why Jordan and his friends have instead turned to collective viewings of reruns. For a week, I’ve been joining the online viewing parties and Eurovision quiz nights that the competition’s fans have been hosting. I’ve listened to specially curated Spotify playlists; attempted to keep up with the hundreds of messages – “Ugh my ovaries”; “QUEEEEN”; “I’ve got literal goose bumps” – appearing on WhatsApp group chats that have welcomed me in. I wanted to find out how fans were coping with Eurovision being cancelled, and what gap this leaves in their lives. So tonight I’m joining in with #eurovision again: a DIY weekly YouTube streaming of one of the competition’s vintage years. Since lockdown started, it has been trending on Twitter every Saturday night. This evening it’s 1997 – I’m told it’s a treat. “None of us knew each other when this one happened,” Jordan says, interrupting an introduction from a youthful-looking Ronan Keating. “We’re able to experience this together in a way we haven’t before.” Eurovision has come a long way since its inaugural 1956 event in Switzerland. Back then, seven countries played two songs each accompanied by a live orchestra: a joint venture to harness the power of newly perfected long distance broadcasting technology while attempting to unite a fractured Europe still recovering from the wounds of war. “What makes Eurovision so special is its legacy,” explains Jon Ola Sand, the contest’s executive supervisor. “It would be impossible to pitch the show to broadcasters now.” But, he says, its heritage and history make it work. “And because it travels from Moscow to Dublin, Athens to Helsinki, it has established itself as a true European project, every year a different country adds a new tone.” Since the 1950s it has grown in every conceivable way. Last year, more than 180 million people tuned in to watch 26 countries battle it out in the glitzy grand final. With Brexit now under way, Eurovision has taken on a new significance for many British viewers – our participation is one of the few public examples of pan-European co-operation in which we will still partake. From low-key beginnings, it has become a huge event; planning for the next contest starts the moment the last one finishes. The rules dictate that the winning country plays host the following May. Hotels need booking before prices are hiked up the next morning; once that’s decided, fans can start plotting out which other events might complement this final destination. There’s the summer party in Berlin; the Eurovision cruise that sets sail every September. January to March is national selection season – fans pick which events they’ll be attending to watch the qualifiers progress. April and May are for preview parties: Amsterdam’s Eurovision In Concert is the biggest, plus Moscow and Madrid, Tel Aviv and London are ones not to miss. “For half the year, fans are crisscrossing through Europe,” says Simon Bennett from his home in London. “If you’re not careful, it can consume your whole calendar.” It’s probably a little late for the 56-year-old to be worrying about that now. A tour guide by trade, for the past five years, he has been the president of the Eurovision fan club, OGAE International. “We’re the umbrella organisation for the 45 national Eurovision fan clubs around the world, made up of more than 13,000 members,” he explains. For the people Bennett represents, news that Eurovision had been called off was devastating. There’s the financial hit: ticket packages through OGAE cost a hefty €799 (£698); whether refunds will be forthcoming for flights, hotels and local events remains to be seen. And then there’s the personal cost. “The biggest shame is that it’s the one time a year that we see our family from across Europe and beyond.” The decision to cancel the show wasn’t taken lightly. The competition is organised by the European Broadcasting Union, and it’s their biggest event of the year. For Jon Ola Sand, this was to be his 10th and final year at the helm. The production team spent a month, says Sand, monitoring the international situation carefully. At first they considered hosting a slimmed-down event. Could it work with no audience? How about remotely? “In the end with the advice from the health authorities in the Netherlands,” he says, “and travel restrictions in several participating countries, we realised it would be impossible to go ahead.” While many cultural institutions are adapting to these unexpected circumstances with innovative, online alternatives, Sand and his team saw no feasible way the show could continue fairly. “What we didn’t want was an uneven playing field with a different type of competition,” he tells me from his base in Norway. “Songs and acts were specially created for that stage – so we decided it would be unfair to change any variables so late on.” Delaying the event until later in the year was also a non-starter. Eurovision is more than the final television show: there’s a full week of rehearsals, heats and run-throughs, plus a nonstop schedule of other events. For seven days, a host city is overrun with Eurovision fever: infrastructure, outdoor screens, hotels and transport all need to be arranged. Instead, on what was meant to be the finale night, there’ll be an alternative live broadcast. Eurovision: Europe Shine a Light will see videos of this year’s songs played out non-competitively, with a few sing-alongs and iconic faces from the past appearing, too. The BBC, meanwhile, has also put together its own replacement, Eurovision: Come Together. “In the end we had no other option but to pull it,” says Sand. “To be honest, I’m finding it’s harder to close down a contest than to put one on.” It may take a year of hard graft for organisers to produce a Eurovision show and all that goes with it, but for Samanta Tīna the road to Rotterdam 2020 took a little longer to travel. Eight years, in fact. It wasn’t a financial pull – not even the winning act gets any prize money – but a career-long ambition she craved to see through. The 31-year-old singer’s first attempt to represent Latvia was back in 2012. She came second in the televised qualifier and the following year was also runner-up. After a further two failed submissions, she gave it a final shot last year and placed seventh. At home in Riga, with only her dog for company, Tina says she had decided not to bother trying for 2020 when applications opened. But then she changed her mind. “When I started performing my new song – Still Breathing – on stage,” Tina says, “I realised I had to enter. There’d been other years when I’d attempted to make it, but had known deep down I didn’t have a track that would make me proud to represent my country. But with this song, I did.” This time, she made it through. The ticket was hers. “I just wish I could have clung on to that feeling a little longer,” she says. “Finally, the candy is in your hands but… when you’re allowed to unwrap it, there’s nothing there. I know that candy is mine.” Cheryl Baker remembers that sweet taste perfectly. It was 1981, and she and her fellow Bucks Fizz band members were in Dublin as the votes from across Europe slowly rolled in. Performing Making Your Mind Up on the Eurovision stage might have been nerve-racking (“Bloody terrifying,” she says), but it earned the group a steady stream of points from every country: the catchy lyrics and kitsch outfits had gone down a treat. “It came down to the final vote,” Baker recalls, nearly four decades later, “and all the cameras were pointing at the German girl who looked happy. I just assumed that she had pipped us to the post. Then I realised: ‘Oh my God, we’ve won.’” In the airport arrivals lounge back in England the following evening, their song was pumped out through the PA – their lives had changed forever. Their single hit number one across Europe and they played Christmas Top of the Pops. “For me, winning Eurovision wasn’t just fulfilling a childhood dream,” Baker says. “Without it I wouldn’t have my house, I’d never have met my husband or had our kids. We still tour. Everything I have is because of Making Your Mind Up, a silly song with no meaning. Actually, I’m pretty sure we can credit the four points we won by to the Velcro skirts we wore.” My virtual journey through Eurovision fandom takes me to every corner of Europe. There’s Vladyslav with a Eurovision photo-collage pinned to his sitting-room wall in the Ukrainian town of Vinnytsia; Paulo in Barcelona, Paul in Manchester and California native Liz Guterbock, too. I make every effort to be indiscriminate, speaking to teenagers and pensioners, men and women, fans old and new. And yet, nearly every punter has one thing in common: they’re almost all lesbian, bisexual or gay. Professor Brian Singleton of Trinity College Dublin has considered why this might be the case more than most others: Eurovision – and the communities which adore it – has made up a fair chunk of his university research. His academic papers include: From Dana to Dustin: The Reputation of Old/New Ireland and the Eurovision Song Contest, and Part of the Show: The Global Networking of Irish Eurovision Song Contest Fans. A fan himself, Singleton was hesitant at first to study Eurovision too closely, worried that it might turn the thing he loved into something that felt more like work. But, he’s relieved to say, that didn’t happen, instead his academic research has deepened his appreciation and enjoyment. “Of course,” Singleton says, “there’s the campness and the glamour” that helps attract a gay audience. But he believes there’s something in both the music and the spectacle that is a little more profound. The narrative of many songs in the contest is of overcoming adversity, he suggests, and with a production on Eurovision’s scale things do inevitably go wrong from time to time. Regardless, the show goes on. “There are just so many moments of triumph in Eurovision,” he continues, “and that speaks to many LGBTQ+ people, certainly of my generation, who came of age in societies where homosexuality was criminalised.” Singleton grew up just outside Omagh, Northern Ireland, during the Troubles when homosexuality was still illegal – tuning in through his teenage years offered a window into another, more hopeful and accepting world. Today, LGBTQ+ people in many competitor nations – Russia, Ukraine and Armenia, among others – continue to face discrimination or state-sanctioned persecution. At Eurovision 2009 in Moscow, local LGBTQ+ people organised a gay pride parade. “The police were chasing the few thousand people who turned up,” Singleton recalls, “while in the arena the state broadcaster was beaming out gay fans dancing to the world’s LGBT community.” Eurovision’s message of possibility still brings hope to people in places where it’s hard to be out and proud. Most fans I speak to have been hooked on Eurovision since early childhood, long before many of them had come to explore their sexuality and all it means. After a week of embracing all things Eurovision, I’ve come to understand why people who are a little different are attracted to the competition’s bright lights. As Rylan Clark-Neal – superfan turned BBC Eurovision presenter – puts it, inclusivity is woven into the contest’s fabric. However much we Brits might take the piss, the show has a huge heart. “I remember watching it through the years as a kid and being in awe of how, despite the fact there are literally judges, the show isn’t at all judgmental,” Clark-Neal says. “You can be transgender and win like Dana International; a group that’s camp as Christmas like Scooch can take off.” All languages, dances and styles of music are celebrated and welcomed, no questions asked. “It feels like a bubble – whether you’re there in person, or watching on your sofa. And once you’re inside, everything is safe and anything goes.”