The Eurovision Song Contest 1957 was the second edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster (HR) on behalf of ARD, the contest, originally known as the () was held on Sunday 3 March 1957 and was hosted at the in Frankfurt, West Germany by German actress Anaid Iplicjian.
Ten countries took part, with , , and the competing for the first time and joining the original seven participating countries from the first contest in . A number of changes to the rules from the previous year's event were enacted, with each country now represented by only one song, which could be performed by up to two performers on stage. The voting system received an overhaul, with each country's jury now comprising ten individuals which awarded one vote each to their favourite song. The results of the voting were now conducted in public, with a scoreboard introduced to allow the process to be followed by viewers and listeners at home. Jurors were also for the first time not allowed to vote for the song from their own country.
The winner of the contest was the , with the song "" performed by Corry Brokken. This was Brokken's second appearance as a participant, after previously representing the Netherlands in 1956; her victory marked the first of five Dutch wins in the contest .
Location
The 1957 contest took place in Frankfurt, West Germany. The selected venue was the , a music hall and former broadcasting studio located in the Dornbusch district, and part of the wider Broadcasting House Dornbusch which serves as the headquarters and main broadcasting facility of the German public broadcaster for the state of Hesse, (HR). The contest was held in front of an audience of around 400 people.
A new plan for staging the event was invoked ahead of the 1957 contest, with a different broadcaster organising the contest each year, after Switzerland's SRG SSR, which had both hosted the contest and provided the winning entry in , declined to stage it for a second time. Germany was subsequently selected to host the second edition, after Hans-Otto Grünefeldt, TV program director at HR, offered to organise it on behalf of ARD.
Participating countries
Ten countries participated in the 1957 contest, with the seven countries which took part in the first contest being joined by , and the in their first appearances. Austria and Denmark had originally planned to compete in 1956, but missed the cut-off date for entry.
Two of the participating artists, Switzerland's Lys Assia and the Netherlands' Corry Brokken, had previously competed at the 1956 contest. Brokken was one of the two Dutch participants in that year's contest, competing with the song "", while Assia had performed both of Switzerland's entries, "" and "", the latter of which had won the contest.
Format
The contest was organised and broadcast by HR on behalf of ARD, with Michael Kehlmann serving as director and Willy Berking serving as musical director, leading the during the event. Each country was allowed to nominate their own musical director to lead the orchestra during the performance of their country's entry, with the host musical director also conducting for those countries which did not nominate their own conductor.
The stage built in the featured a staircase for each artist and conductor to make their entrance, and a harp-shaped background. The centre of the background contained a removable background, allowing for a different graphic to be used for each nation's performance. The entire contest, including the performances and voting, lasted around one hour in total. Held just over nine months after the inaugural contest, the contest date of 3 March remains the earliest date in the calendar year in which the contest has been held.
A number of changes from the rules of the previous year's contest were enacted in 1957. Each country was now permitted to send only one song to compete, as opposed to the maximum of two in 1956. Up to two people were now allowed on stage during the performanceonly solo artists were permitted to compete previouslyhowever no other vocal backing was allowed.