🔴 1956 Eurovision Song Contest from Lugano/Switzerland - Reconstruction with photos & film footage

Date: 24 May 1956 - Host Venue: Teatro Kursaal, Lugano, Switzerland
Presenter: Lohengrin Filipello - Musical director: Fernando Paggi
Directed by Franco Marazzi - Executive supervisor: Rolf Liebermann
Host broadcaster: Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR) & Radiotelevisione svizzera (RSI)
Interval act: Les Joyeux Rossignols & Les Trois Ménestrels

The Eurovision Song Contest 1956 was the first edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest, organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcasters the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR) and Radiotelevisione svizzera (RSI). The contest, originally titled the Grand Prix Eurovision de la Chanson Européenne 1956 (Italian: Gran Premio Eurovisione 1956 della Canzone Europea, English: Grand Prix of the Eurovision Song Competition), was held on Thursday 24 May 1956 at the Teatro Kursaal in Lugano, Switzerland and hosted by Swiss television presenter Lohengrin Filipello, which remains the only time that the contest has been hosted by a solo male presenter.

Inspired principally by the Italian Sanremo Music Festival, held annually since 1951, the concept of a televised European song contest, initially proposed by Italian broadcaster RAI, was formulated by an EBU committee led by Swiss broadcaster and executive Marcel Bezençon. Following approval at the EBU's General Assembly in 1955, the rules and structure of the contest were agreed upon. Several of the rules utilised in this first contest would subsequently be altered for future editions, and it remains the only edition in which each country was represented by two songs, with only solo performers allowed to compete, and a voting process which was held in secret and where juries could vote for the entries from their own country.

Seven countries participated in the inaugural edition of the contest, and the first winner was the host country Switzerland, with the song "Refrain" performed by Lys Assia. The result was determined by an assembled jury composed of two jurors from each country, with each juror ranking each song between 1 and 10 points. Only the winning country and song were announced at the conclusion of the event, with the results of the remaining participants unknown.

Each participating broadcaster was required to relay the contest via its networks. Non-participating EBU member broadcasters were also able to relay the contest as "passive participants". In addition to the television channels of the seven participating broadcasters and three non-participating passive broadcasters, the contest was also broadcast live on seven radio networks and recorded for later transmission by another 13. The United Kingdom's BBC took only partial live transmission of the event, joining 45 minutes into the contest and only showing the second set of entries from each country. Broadcasters were able to send commentators to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language and to relay information about the artists and songs to their television viewers.

No complete video footage of the entire contest is known to exist, with the only known footage being clips of the reprise performance of the winning song via newsreel and other recordings. Audio of most of the contest have however survived, missing only part of the interval act, and a large cache of photographs has also been uncovered in recent years. As such, this is one of only two editions of the contest, along with the 1964 contest, to not have video recordings of the full event retained.

The purpose of this video is to replicate the look what the telvised contest would've looked like. Credits to LewisTheThing for putting it all together in so many hours of hard work.

Participants and results of the Eurovision Song Contest 1956:

R/O Country Artist Song Language
1 Netherlands Jetty Paerl "De vogels van Holland" Dutch
2 Switzerland Lys Assia "Das alte Karussell" German
3 Belgium Fud Leclerc "Messieurs les noyés de la Seine" French
4 Germany Walter Andreas Schwarz "Im Wartesaal zum großen Glück" German
5 France Mathé Altéry "Le temps perdu" French
6 Luxembourg Michèle Arnaud "Ne crois pas" French
7 Italy Franca Raimondi "Aprite le finestre" Italian
8 Netherlands Corry Brokken "Voorgoed voorbij" Dutch
9 Switzerland Lys Assia "Refrain" French
10 Belgium Mony Marc "Le plus beau jour de ma vie" French
11 Germany Freddy Quinn "So geht das jede Nacht" German
12 France Dany Dauberson "Il est là" French
13 Luxembourg Michèle Arnaud "Les amants de minuit" French
14 Italy Tonina Torrielli "Amami se vuoi" Italian