I've been reading around the place and I keep seeing that countries had to qualify for the contest back in the day. How? I've never heard of that! :unsure:

Hmm... I know in 1996 I think it was, they were a bit over numbered and so a panel of experts listened to all the songs and decided which five to kick out, and one of them was Germany, that prompted the EBU to invent the "big four", so that the biggest financial contributors could never be relegated. Then in 1997 (I think) a load of eastern countries had to fight for three places or something, and they were put into little groups and a few of them got kicked out. I think it says all about it on Wikipedia.

Ah ok, thanks. I thought I missed out on a few semi-finals. :rolleyes: :lol:

Here is the voting they had in 1993 to eliminate some countries. ^_^

 

Thanks for that! That's quite cool! :dance: