for exclusive and original coverage from ITV News. Direct to your inbox every Friday morning.<\/strong> <\/p>\nIreland, Iceland, the Netherlands, Spain and Slovenia all boycotted Eurovision this year. <\/p>\n
Protesters demonstrated near the arena ahead of the final, with the largest demonstration No Stage For Genocide, organised by Palestine Solidarity Austria, taking place at a playpark on the outskirts of Vienna. <\/p>\n
There was also a march from the city\u2019s western train station to the area where the Wiener Stadthalle is located, but police directed protesters away from the venue in a loop. <\/p>\n
Israel’s Noam Bettan performs the song Michelle Credit: PA<\/p>\n
One demonstrator said it was \u201cimportant to protest against that idea that the song contest is not political”, declaring that the competition is “a very political event”. <\/p>\n
Inside the arena, the show appeared to run without a hitch, opening with a performance from last year\u2019s winner JJ, before Denmark’s Soren Torpegaard Lund became the first act to compete. <\/p>\n
The UK’s Eurovision entrant Look Mum No Computer, real name Sam Battle, performed his song Eins, Zwei, Drei while wearing a pink jumpsuit and dancing energetically with people dressed as fluffy green computers.<\/p>\n
Battle, a YouTube star, moved around a mock workshop on the stage and at one point attempted to get the crowd to sing with him, chanting: \u201cWhen I say eins, you say zwei”. <\/p>\n
The UK came last in the competition Credit: PA<\/p>\n
Israel’s Bettan was third to sing, and some chants and booing could be heard in the crowd but Israeli flags and banners were also seen. <\/p>\n
The 28-year-old, who sang his song Michelle, in English, Hebrew and French, had been booed during his performance at Tuesday’s semi-final. <\/p>\n
Further into the show, Australian pop star Delta Goodrem performed her song Eclipse, accompanied by a harpist, before eventually playing a gold sparkly piano herself.<\/p>\n
The former Neighbours star was a favourite of the competition, and ended her song by being elevated into the air from the top of the piano, as fireworks went off around her.<\/p>\n
A No Stage For Genocide protest against Israel’s participation in the Eurovision Song Contest Credit: PA<\/p>\n
Greece\u2019s act Akylas also attracted huge amounts of attention online with his video game-inspired performance of his song Ferto, which involved him scootering along the stage in a tiger print outfit.<\/p>\n
Former Love Island contestant Antigoni Buxton, who was born in London, delivered her song Jalla for Cyprus, with hands reaching up from the stage below her and flames shooting out from behind. <\/p>\n
Daniel Zizka, representing Czech Republic, appeared to have technical difficulties during his performance of the song Crossroads, where he appeared inside an elaborate hall of mirrors. <\/p>\n
At one point the picture became distorted and froze as he sang, which UK commentator Graham Norton said had not happened in rehearsals. <\/p>\n
Former Love Island star Antigoni performed for Cyprus Credit: PA<\/p>\n
Lithuania\u2019s Lion Ceccah also gave an eye-catching performance with his head and hands painted silver and a black sculpture-like costume.<\/p>\n
A tear appeared to run down his face as he sang an emotional rendition of Solo Quiero Mas before saying: \u201cThank you Europe and humanity. I love you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reporting History sees journalists join News At Ten anchor Tom Bradby to revisit their remarkable on-the-day reports of the defining events of the modern age. Listen to the episodes below…<\/strong> <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bulgaria has won the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest, while the UK came in last place. Singer Dara was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":965700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3937],"tags":[77,382,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-965699","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116587467058966774","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=965699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/965700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=965699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=965699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=965699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}