2024 Archives – Six on Stage blog

Two of this year’s jury spokespeople have risen from joint 8th to joint 7th in the list of those who have presented their country’s scores most often.

Loukas Hamatsos gave Cyprus’s scores for the 12th time, having first done so way back in 2000, while Andri Xhahu made it the 12th Content in a row where he has given the scores for Albania. They tie with Solveig Herlin who gave Finland’s scores almost every year from 1982 to 1996.

They still have some way to go to reach the top of the leaderboard:

Colin Berry (UK 24 times)
Michel Stocker (Switzerland 20 times)
Sverre Christopherson (Norway 18 times)

2024’s spokespeople were made up of a few groups. A handful haven’t had a Eurovision role before, but almost all had at least a Eurovision-adjacent connection.

Returning spokespeople

10 of the 36 spokespeople (Netherlands having decided not to present their votes) had performed the role before.

In addition to Loukas and Andri, these included Lorella Flego (4 times for Slovenia, including this year), Ingvild Helljesen (4 times for Norway, having stepped in at the last minute this year), Philipp Hansa (5 times in a row for Austria), and Radka Rosická (her 5th time for Czechia).

Ina Müller gave the scores for Germany for a second time – that’s once less than one-letter-different Tina Müller has given them from Denmark.

National finalists

Three spokespeople took part in their countries’ national selections for 2024. These included Matt Blxck from Malta and Denise Bertozzi who took part in San Marino’s selection as Kida.

Previous entrants

As has become traditional, a number of former competing artists returned to give their countries’ scores. There were 15 this year, with three Contest winners among them.

Five spokespeople had taken part in 2023 – Mimicat, Brunette, Danny from Voyager, Andrejs from Sudden Lights and Monika Linkytė.

Konstrakta returned from 2022, having also taken part in Serbia’s national final this year.

The returning winners were Jamala from Ukraine, Paul Harrington, who won for Ireland 30 years ago this year and was a juror in 2009, and Helena Paparizou, who was previous Greece’s spokesperson in 2015.

An honourable mention here also to Poland’s Viki Gabor, who won the Junior Eurovision Song Contest for them in 2019.

The class of 2024 have been selected and their songs confirmed with the EBU – but not all of them are newcomers to the Eurovision Song Contest. Seven of the artists taking part this year were already part of the Six on Stage database from a previous contribution.

1. Hera Björk

By some margin the best known to Eurovision fans is Hera Björk from Iceland. As well as representing her character as singer and co-writer with Je Ne Sais Quoi in 2010, she has provided backing vocals on multiple occasions (2008, 2009 and 2015) and been a vocal coach. She also came close to representing Denmark in 2009 with Someday.

2. Natalia Barbu

Our other returning artist this year is Moldova’s Natalia Barbu, who also performed Fight for Moldova in 2007.

3 & 4. Zaachariaha Fielding & Michael Ross

The duo Electric Fields are another fan favourite, coming to prominence in 2019 when they finshed second in Australia Decides with 2000 and Whatever. While they are finally representing Australia this year, their success in that national final saw them announce the Australian jury’s 12 points in 2019.

5 & 6. Marcus Gunnarsen & Martinus Gunnarsen

Although they’re flying the flag for Sweden this year, twins Marcus & Martinus are Norwegian and it was for Norway that they revealed the jury scores in 2017, when they were just 15. (We’re going to have to do another post about the times a country had more than one spokesperson…) Earlier the same year they had performed an interval act during Finland’s national final.

7. Raiven

Raiven took part in the public selection for Eurovision three times in Slovenia and this year finally makes it to Malmö via internal selection. But back in 2018 – between her second and third attempts – she was chair of the national jury and, unanimously with her colleaogues, gave her top score to Dance You Off.

An honourable mention too to Kaleen from Austria, whose previous roles have included being a creative director at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, acting as an artist stand-in during Eurovision rehearsals, and being a dancer and choreographer for interval acts in 2018.