Eurovision 1963

The Eurovision Song Contest 1963 was the 8th Eurovision Song Contest. take place in the UK
France had won the contest in 1962 but they handed the honour of hosting the event to the United Kingdom because they did not wish to host the contest again so soon after hosting the 1961 event. The same thing happened when the Netherlands won in 1959 and were unable to host it in 1960. The host venue was the BBC Television Centre, White City, London, which opened in 1960. Two studios were used: one for the mistress of ceremonies Katie Boyle, the audience, and the scoreboard; the other for the performers and the orchestra accompanying them. Unusually, a boom microphone (normally used for drama and comedy shows) was employed - the viewer doesn't see this, so it appears as if the artists were miming to their vocals. This was not the case, but this innovation was to create a 'new look' for the contest. This procedure was never used again. One controversy this year was during the voting. When it was Norway's turn to announce their votes, the spokesman in Oslo did not use the correct procedure in that the song number, followed by the name of the country, should have been announced before awarding the points. Katie Boyle asked Norway to repeat their results, but the Norwegian spokesman asked Katie to return to them after all the other results were in. When Katie went back to Norway again the votes had mysteriously altered, thus changing the outcome of the contest and giving the victory to Norway's neighbours Denmark at Switzerland's expense. In fact, there was some doubt as to whether the Norwegian spokesman gave the correct votes on the first occasion. Denmark's win was their first. Finland, Norway and Sweden all failed to score any points for the first time. Netherlands received no points for the second time, and became the first country to go two years in a row without scoring a single point.