Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Eurovision Uncovered Meets Christer Björkman: “There are Challenges in Almost Every Act”
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Eurovision Uncovered Meets Christer Björkman: “There are Challenges in Almost Every Act”
In a wide-ranging interview for Eurovision Uncovered, Eurovision 2025 Head of Contest Christer Björkman has opened up about his time producing the world’s biggest music show.
Across an hour-long conversation with James Stephenson, available now as a special episode of the Eurovision Uncovered podcast and on ESC Insight’s YouTube channel, Björkman reveals what really goes into making Eurovision possible. He discusses how he and the technical team work with countries on each song’s staging, how he devises the all-important running order, and considers the future of Eurovision across the world.
Christer Björkman has taken on the role of Head of Contest at seven separate Eurovision editions – but he’s confirmed to ESC Insight that he will not be taking on the role at the upcoming contest in Vienna in 2026. The Swedish TV producer revealed that the role would be taken “by an Austrian” for the 70th anniversary edition, “who I have hired in the past.”
With this news, this conversation became a reflection about Björkman’s time in the role, the evolutions he’s made to it, and never-before-heard stories about how the show comes together.
Staging Each Entry
Eurovision Uncovered spoke to Björkman to get his insights on how complex the Eurovision Song Contest’s production really is. In his view, the Eurovision team is a service provider – a production crew that tries to deliver the best possible product for its “customers”, the broadcasters:
“The Contest is a creative service to 40 customers…that actually pay handsomely to get help to put their absolute best possible show on the stage.”
As Head of Contest, Björkman faces a myriad of technical challenges in realising each country’s ambitions. But for Christer, one of the biggest challenges in creating those Eurovision performances is bringing people down to reality.
While every artist, staging director and broadcaster may have a dream vision of their performance, Christer believes that it’s vital to make everyone work within the reality of what’s possible on stage each year.
“Every creator has a film in their head. It’s based on the best possible outcome. What we do when we send out the stand-in rehearsal recording is we actually kill that film and force everyone into the reality of our world. This is the world we have.”
As Christer says, creating that begins long before the broadcasters arrive. The process of getting each performance ready for the team begins almost as soon as each song is selected for the Contest.
“My work usually starts with me writing to a country saying, congratulations, I hear you chose your artist and your song. Please brief me as soon as possible of your ideas and let’s see if we can help you achieve what you want.”
From there, Björkman says that each country approaches their performance differently:
“Some countries come…with a package. This is it. This is what we want. This is what it looks like.”
“You have those and then you have those that actually come and say, we need help. We have this artist, we have this song, we don’t have much money, but – what can we do together?”
The Eurovision production team works closely with both types of entry – either to achieve the best possible version of a country’s ideas, or to create ideas collaboratively with the broadcaster.
The Production Challenges
But, of course, achieving each performance at the Eurovision Song Contest on stage is a difficult feat. Christer revealed just how challenging the process could be:
“There are challenges in almost every act. It could be something simple like getting rid of a mic stand.”
Eurovision performances are a high-wire act. Beyond the artist and the dancers, there’s a team of camera operators working around the stage, almost a part of the choreography themselves. That adds more layers of complexity, and more risk of a slip-up.
“People run across the stage all the time…and you never see it on camera. There’s always something that could go wrong.”
Christer revealed one such example from Eurovision 2025. He told ESC Insight that, during the first semi-final of this year’s contest, a camera operator stepping on a single cable led to the feed cutting out during Zoë Më’s performance of “Voyage” for hosts Switzerland.
Beyond those challenges, another one that Christer is concerned about is the cost of Eurovision performances. That cost has been rising in recent years – in an interview during show week at Eurovision 2025, Ziferblat’s Valentyn Leshchynskyi claimed that the smoke machine they used in their performance of Bird of Prey cost €15,000 to use.
When that number was put to him, he revealed that costs were “a huge problem” for the Contest:
“The cost of making this show, period, is a problem. It is so expensive.”
However, the producer doesn’t believe that it’s something you can make fair for all broadcasters. In his view, Eurovision is like sports – where some countries have more resources than others:
“Fairness is not even applicable here. It is what it is. Yes, some countries spend more money on [Eurovision]. Some countries spend more money on sports, athletes and the development of them.
Is it fair? No, maybe not, but it’s just the way it is.”
The Running Order
As Head of Contest, Christer Björkman is also responsible for the Eurovision Song Contest’s running order. We asked him what the process of creating that all-important sequence for the Grand Final was really like.
“I still have my post-its. And they have different colours, and everything that’s included in the act – all the information I could put on a post-it I have on it.”
For Christer, the post-its act as a code to quickly identify what type of performance they are placing into the order:
“[The colour] indicates if it’s male or female, group or solo, high-energy, low-energy, genre and all that.”
Once the second semi-final is finished, and all 26 finalists are established, Christer moves quickly:
“What happens is on Thursday night, right after, I just take off. And then the Executive Supervisor also comes and usually I get like half an hour to make a suggestion, you know, just something to start with – and then we actually go through every single position.”
In Christer’s view, organising that running order is a different challenge today. That’s because he feels the new voting rules, where audiences can vote for their favourite performances during the Eurovision final, has changed the dynamics of the running order itself.
Today, Christer feels “there are no bad spots” within the running order:
“If you look at the result from this year, top 3 [in the public vote]: 3, 4, 9 [in the running order]. In the old days, it would have been beneficial probably to be in the second half.
But still, Sweden was before Estonia in the semi-final, but they were after in the final in the results. Interesting.”
Eurovision Around the World
Finally, Christer Björkman spoke to ESC Insight about the future of the Eurovision Song Contest – specifically his work with Voxovation, which licenses the format to different territories.
During our conversation, he told us that the next programme in the pipeline was Eurovision Asia – a show which was rumoured to be airing this year, only for the EBU to issue a statement denying its existence.
However, Björkman revealed there were “intensive preparations” for Eurovision Asia ongoing, and that they hoped it would be revealed “quite soon”:
“The most intensive preparations are for Asia. It’s ongoing. It’s very complicated. There’s nothing decided yet. There’s nothing confirmed. We’re not quite there yet. Hopefully, it will be quite soon.”
Through Voxovation, Christer also hopes to bring Eurovision to other parts of the world. And, at the end of our conversation, he said his “ultimate dream” was to see Eurovision Song Contest’s across the world, from which the top entries would compete against each other “in a world final”:
“My dream scenario is that Europe, Asia, South America or the Americas actually happen – and the top 5 from each continent meet in a world final.”
When we asked whether he truly thought that could happen, Christer responded in a way that sums up his approach to working as Head of Contest and making Eurovision’s technical production tick over the years:
“Yeah! Why not?”
You can listen to ESC Insight’s full interview with Christer Bjorkman for our podcast series, Eurovision Uncovered, on our podcast feed, or you can watch the conversation in full on the ESC Insight YouTube channel.
The post Eurovision Uncovered Meets Christer Björkman: “There are Challenges in Almost Every Act” appeared first on ESC Insight - Home of the Unofficial Eurovision Song Contest Podcast.
View all episodes
By Ewan Spence
4.8
2323 ratings
In a wide-ranging interview for Eurovision Uncovered, Eurovision 2025 Head of Contest Christer Björkman has opened up about his time producing the world’s biggest music show.
Across an hour-long conversation with James Stephenson, available now as a special episode of the Eurovision Uncovered podcast and on ESC Insight’s YouTube channel, Björkman reveals what really goes into making Eurovision possible. He discusses how he and the technical team work with countries on each song’s staging, how he devises the all-important running order, and considers the future of Eurovision across the world.
Christer Björkman has taken on the role of Head of Contest at seven separate Eurovision editions – but he’s confirmed to ESC Insight that he will not be taking on the role at the upcoming contest in Vienna in 2026. The Swedish TV producer revealed that the role would be taken “by an Austrian” for the 70th anniversary edition, “who I have hired in the past.”
With this news, this conversation became a reflection about Björkman’s time in the role, the evolutions he’s made to it, and never-before-heard stories about how the show comes together.
Staging Each Entry
Eurovision Uncovered spoke to Björkman to get his insights on how complex the Eurovision Song Contest’s production really is. In his view, the Eurovision team is a service provider – a production crew that tries to deliver the best possible product for its “customers”, the broadcasters:
“The Contest is a creative service to 40 customers…that actually pay handsomely to get help to put their absolute best possible show on the stage.”
As Head of Contest, Björkman faces a myriad of technical challenges in realising each country’s ambitions. But for Christer, one of the biggest challenges in creating those Eurovision performances is bringing people down to reality.
While every artist, staging director and broadcaster may have a dream vision of their performance, Christer believes that it’s vital to make everyone work within the reality of what’s possible on stage each year.
“Every creator has a film in their head. It’s based on the best possible outcome. What we do when we send out the stand-in rehearsal recording is we actually kill that film and force everyone into the reality of our world. This is the world we have.”
As Christer says, creating that begins long before the broadcasters arrive. The process of getting each performance ready for the team begins almost as soon as each song is selected for the Contest.
“My work usually starts with me writing to a country saying, congratulations, I hear you chose your artist and your song. Please brief me as soon as possible of your ideas and let’s see if we can help you achieve what you want.”
From there, Björkman says that each country approaches their performance differently:
“Some countries come…with a package. This is it. This is what we want. This is what it looks like.”
“You have those and then you have those that actually come and say, we need help. We have this artist, we have this song, we don’t have much money, but – what can we do together?”
The Eurovision production team works closely with both types of entry – either to achieve the best possible version of a country’s ideas, or to create ideas collaboratively with the broadcaster.
The Production Challenges
But, of course, achieving each performance at the Eurovision Song Contest on stage is a difficult feat. Christer revealed just how challenging the process could be:
“There are challenges in almost every act. It could be something simple like getting rid of a mic stand.”
Eurovision performances are a high-wire act. Beyond the artist and the dancers, there’s a team of camera operators working around the stage, almost a part of the choreography themselves. That adds more layers of complexity, and more risk of a slip-up.
“People run across the stage all the time…and you never see it on camera. There’s always something that could go wrong.”
Christer revealed one such example from Eurovision 2025. He told ESC Insight that, during the first semi-final of this year’s contest, a camera operator stepping on a single cable led to the feed cutting out during Zoë Më’s performance of “Voyage” for hosts Switzerland.
Beyond those challenges, another one that Christer is concerned about is the cost of Eurovision performances. That cost has been rising in recent years – in an interview during show week at Eurovision 2025, Ziferblat’s Valentyn Leshchynskyi claimed that the smoke machine they used in their performance of Bird of Prey cost €15,000 to use.
When that number was put to him, he revealed that costs were “a huge problem” for the Contest:
“The cost of making this show, period, is a problem. It is so expensive.”
However, the producer doesn’t believe that it’s something you can make fair for all broadcasters. In his view, Eurovision is like sports – where some countries have more resources than others:
“Fairness is not even applicable here. It is what it is. Yes, some countries spend more money on [Eurovision]. Some countries spend more money on sports, athletes and the development of them.
Is it fair? No, maybe not, but it’s just the way it is.”
The Running Order
As Head of Contest, Christer Björkman is also responsible for the Eurovision Song Contest’s running order. We asked him what the process of creating that all-important sequence for the Grand Final was really like.
“I still have my post-its. And they have different colours, and everything that’s included in the act – all the information I could put on a post-it I have on it.”
For Christer, the post-its act as a code to quickly identify what type of performance they are placing into the order:
“[The colour] indicates if it’s male or female, group or solo, high-energy, low-energy, genre and all that.”
Once the second semi-final is finished, and all 26 finalists are established, Christer moves quickly:
“What happens is on Thursday night, right after, I just take off. And then the Executive Supervisor also comes and usually I get like half an hour to make a suggestion, you know, just something to start with – and then we actually go through every single position.”
In Christer’s view, organising that running order is a different challenge today. That’s because he feels the new voting rules, where audiences can vote for their favourite performances during the Eurovision final, has changed the dynamics of the running order itself.
Today, Christer feels “there are no bad spots” within the running order:
“If you look at the result from this year, top 3 [in the public vote]: 3, 4, 9 [in the running order]. In the old days, it would have been beneficial probably to be in the second half.
But still, Sweden was before Estonia in the semi-final, but they were after in the final in the results. Interesting.”
Eurovision Around the World
Finally, Christer Björkman spoke to ESC Insight about the future of the Eurovision Song Contest – specifically his work with Voxovation, which licenses the format to different territories.
During our conversation, he told us that the next programme in the pipeline was Eurovision Asia – a show which was rumoured to be airing this year, only for the EBU to issue a statement denying its existence.
However, Björkman revealed there were “intensive preparations” for Eurovision Asia ongoing, and that they hoped it would be revealed “quite soon”:
“The most intensive preparations are for Asia. It’s ongoing. It’s very complicated. There’s nothing decided yet. There’s nothing confirmed. We’re not quite there yet. Hopefully, it will be quite soon.”
Through Voxovation, Christer also hopes to bring Eurovision to other parts of the world. And, at the end of our conversation, he said his “ultimate dream” was to see Eurovision Song Contest’s across the world, from which the top entries would compete against each other “in a world final”:
“My dream scenario is that Europe, Asia, South America or the Americas actually happen – and the top 5 from each continent meet in a world final.”
When we asked whether he truly thought that could happen, Christer responded in a way that sums up his approach to working as Head of Contest and making Eurovision’s technical production tick over the years:
“Yeah! Why not?”
You can listen to ESC Insight’s full interview with Christer Bjorkman for our podcast series, Eurovision Uncovered, on our podcast feed, or you can watch the conversation in full on the ESC Insight YouTube channel.
The post Eurovision Uncovered Meets Christer Björkman: “There are Challenges in Almost Every Act” appeared first on ESC Insight - Home of the Unofficial Eurovision Song Contest Podcast.