“The grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 will take place in St. Jakobshalle, Basel, on Saturday, May 17th,” the European Broadcasting Union announced.

Basel, which lies on the River Rhine or the border with France and Germany, was given the nod by the European Broadcasting Union.

“The EBU is thrilled that Basel has been selected as the host city for the Eurovision Song Contest 2025. The contest was born in Switzerland in Lugano back in 1956 and it’s great to be bringing it back to its birthplace almost 70 years later,” said the contest’s executive supervisor Martin Osterdahl.

Zurich, Geneva, Basel, plus Bern in conjunction with Nemo’s hometown Biel, had been in running as the four declared candidates to stage the 69th Eurovision Song Contest.

The financial demands of hosting Eurovision had sparked threats of local referendums to ensure certain Swiss cities didn’t get saddled with the event.

Hosting has a knock-on boost for the hotel and tourism industries as Eurovision fanatics, artists and country delegations flock in.

The contest puts host cities in the spotlight, with 163 million viewers worldwide watching this year’s event in Malmo, Sweden, where Nemo triumphed with the highly personal song “The Code”.

St. Jakobshalle venue

The contest will be staged at St. Jakobshalle in the Munchenstein district on the edge of Basel.

Opened in 1976, it calls itself Switzerland’s top multi-purpose arena and can hold more than 12,000 spectators.

It hosts the Swiss Indoors men’s annual tennis tournament, an event won a record 10 times by hometown hero Roger Federer.

It has also hosted world and European handball championships, world curling championships and matches in the 1998 ice hockey world championships.

Later this year it will host Canadian singer Bryan Adams and a leg of the PDC European darts tour.

‘Benefits will flow’

From its earnest 1950s beginnings, Eurovision has ballooned into a colourful giant annual celebration that never takes itself too seriously.

It is a non-profit event, mostly financed by weighted contributions from participating EBU broadcasters.

Eurovision says that “given the benefits that will flow” to the host city, it must make a contribution to the competition’s hosting.

This can be “either financially or ‘in kind’ (e.g. covering expenses of city branding, side events, security, etc.)”.