Eurovision Song Contest to be held in Rotterdam

The Eurovision Song Contest 2020 will be held in Rotterdam, the song festival announced on Friday. The semi finals will be held on Tuesday May 12th and Thursday May 14th, with grand final scheduled for Saturday May 16th. Rotterdam Ahoy will be the venue, NOS reports.

When selecting the location, the organizers of the Eurovision Song Contest looked at the technical suitability of the location, surrounding facilities, availability and financial contribution from the municipality. Rotterdam emerged as the favorite.

"With Rotterdam as the host city of the Eurovision Song Contest, we are not only choosing a city with a special story and undeniable vigor. We are also choosing Rotterdam Ahoy, as far as we are concerned the most suitable location for producing three state-of-the-art TV shows for more than 180 million viewers."

Rotterdam and Maastricht were the last two cities in the running to host the massive event. Amsterdam had to pull out due to scheduling conflicts. If Maastricht was chosen as host city, the event would have been held in the MECC congress center. The center announced on Friday that it would not be organizing the event.

The Eurovision Song Competition will take place in the Netherlands because Dutch participant Duncan Laurence won the contest in Tel Aviv with his song Arcade. It was the first time in 44 years that the contest was won by the Netherlands.