Eurovision‘s theme, “United by Music,” has rarely sounded more ironic as Vienna gears up to host the kitschy song contest.

On a boiling day a week ago, the city’s main stadium appeared more like a small military installation: new security cameras peered into the neighborhood — Vienna’s poorest — as staffers in lanyards sat in fold-out chairs, guarding every conceivable entrance. Fencing featuring the titles of past Eurovision hits — Rise Like a Phoenix, Wasted Love — rose from concrete traffic barriers: half-advertisement, half-warning.  

The concert hall, called Stadthalle, occupies a city block and is surrounded by residential buildings. It’s in a neighborhood with paltry access to parks, and now the green space around the Stadthalle is being sequestered as well, depriving residents of 30,000 square meters of parkland in the name of European unity. According to neighbors, Eurovision organizers are flying multiple drones over the stadium in the lead up to the event while unleashing dogs to ferret out potential explosives.

Still, the vibe was conspicuously relaxed a mere block away, where locals at a restaurant were smoking copiously, drinking beer and listening to Top 40.

As a new resident of Vienna, I was curious about how the city would balance silly bonhomie and serious security concerns at this year’s Eurovision, especially as Israel advances to the finals. Vienna is used to hosting major events, as well as protecting a sizable Jewish community; still, the world’s largest annual live music event, now entangled in a major geopolitical conflict, requires more than a few hired guards.

“Any large-scale major event will never be wholly immune from what’s happening in the world around it,” Martin Green, the director of Eurovision, told me. “Thankfully, we’ve got brilliant people on it who know that having fun is serious business.”

Tensions around security have already ratched up in recent days. “We won’t let ourselves be terrorised into silence,” Vienna Mayor Michael Ludwig of the Social Democrats said angrily to a group of pro-Palestinian protesters who blew whistles at a concert he was speaking at this past Friday.

“Unfortunately we will need large security measures because of people like you, for example. That will incur great expense, but we will nevertheless hold a festival of togetherness, I can promise you that,” he said.

This year, Vienna is deploying 500 private security personnel, 180 new cameras, counter-drones and sniffer dogs, while teaming up with an FBI task force in New York to monitor cyber threats. It’s a dizzying security setup for a celebration better known for absurdist set pieces, ironic nationalism, and nonsensical lyrics. This year, the contenders include a UK musician who builds instruments out of Furby toys and another whose entry is an ode to erotic asphyxiation.

Over 1,700 songs have been performed on Eurovision’s stage since the competition’s inception— including by icons like ABBA and Céline Dion —but as the festival has ballooned in size and scope, it has also become a political lightning rod.

Now, five countries — Spain, Slovenia, Iceland, Ireland and the Netherlands — have pulled out of the competition because of Israel’s inclusion. It’s being called the largest politically-motivated boycott in Eurovision history.

“Each country’s boycott is politically significant given their connection to Eurovision,” says Eurovision scholar Dean Vuletic. Spain has historically been one of the “big five” countries, which automatically qualifies it for the grand finale, while the Netherlands has been part of the competition since the very start, and Ireland holds the record, along with Sweden, for most wins.

Then there’s Iceland, which may be tiny but is arguably the world’s most Eurovision-obsessed nation — last year’s finale captured a 97.8% viewing share, meaning virtually every television in the country that was turned on was also tuned in.

Slovenia, notably, is rooting its refusal to join the competition in its recent experience of war. Nataljia Gorscak, who runs Slovenia’s national broadcasting organization, RTV Slovenija, told me that she believes Israel is misusing Eurovision to make a political statement about their victimization, which in her mind sets a dangerous precedent.

Instead of Eurovision, Slovenia is set to air a documentary titled “Voices of Palestine.” It’s an act of protest that recalls the time Israel was on its way to winning with the song “A-Ba-Ni-Bi” in 1978 and Jordanian television cut the broadcast and replaced it with pictures of flowers.

Gorscak says she doesn’t mind if fewer people tune in to watch her alternative programming. “Our role is to sometimes have less ratings but to have the content which is more appropriate for the situation we live in,” she said.

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Founded on the majestic slopes of Lugano, Switzerland in 1956, Eurovision was originally a technical experiment, meant to test if one event could broadcast live to millions across the continent.

At the time, the European Broadcasting Union — which still runs the festival — was unconcerned with the “political standards” of participating countries, says Vuletic. Spain joined the contest in 1961, while Portugal followed in 1964 — both still under authoritarian rule. Neither country’s domestic politics raised objections from the EBU, which viewed the contest purely as a broadcasting exercise, not a method for political accountability.

But in 2022, the EBU broke its own precedent and barred Russia from competing after its invasion of Ukraine — a decision that is viewed as a precedent for those demanding Israel’s exclusion.

“When the European Broadcasting Union excluded Russia, there was a context of international sanctions that the European Broadcasting Union could draw on,” says Vuletic. “The EBU doesn’t have the same mandate to act politically against Israel in that regard.”

Israel’s inclusion has, in the past, created security challenges: in 1973, shortly after Israelis had been massacred at the Munich Olympics, the audience at Eurovision was instructed to stay seated throughout the show or risk being shot by security. Last year, in Basel, after Israel’s participation drove mass protests, the Swiss Army was deployed to monitor for gas, poison or radiation threats.  

But Israel is far from the only country to have caused a security headache for Eurovision. When Azerbaijan hosted the contest in 2012, authorities said they foiled a series of terrorist attacks targeting the venue and hotels full of foreign tourists.

Russia, meanwhile, has been a persistent source of disruption: in 2022, after Russia was banned from the contest over its invasion of Ukraine, Kremlin-linked hackers attempted to take down Eurovision’s servers to prevent a Ukrainian victory.

Vienna is especially keen to avoid any incidents after a foiled terror attack planned for a Taylor Swift concert in 2024 knocked the city off the top of the Economist’s world rankings for highest quality of life. Pulling off a smooth and safe Eurovision “is about tourism, but it’s also about Austria’s international identity as a neutral and peaceful country,” says Vuletic.

Adding to the tension, the eve of the final, Friday, May 15, coincides with Nakba Day, when Palestinians commemorate the loss of their land after the 1948 war that established the modern state of Israel.

“We expect there will in fact be blockades and disruptive actions, particularly on the day of the final, whether through authorized or unauthorized gatherings,” Xenia Zauner,  a senior police official who will oversee the security operation, told a press conference last week.

But Austrian politicians have made their stance clear over the past year: Israel must stay in the competition, no matter the associated security risks.

“It’s unacceptable that we, of all people, should prohibit a Jewish artist from coming to Vienna,” a senior representative from the ruling party, ÖVP, told a local news source last year. Other ÖVP officials said that Austria should refuse to even host Eurovision if Israel is excluded from the competition.

“For many in Europe, the Holocaust, the memory of antisemitism, and the continued threats of antisemitism are reasons why they will support Israel even in contexts like the Gaza war or the current wars in Iran and Lebanon,” says Vuletic.

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To get a closer look at Eurovision’s security apparatus, I decided to register with the festival as a member of the media, not knowing if I possessed the mental fortitude to actually attend the four-hour pyrotechnical finale. After uploading a passport and selfie, and submitting proof of my employment, the PDFs arrived in my inbox with a thud: over 110 pages on how to behave at the “non-political, international entertainment event.”

One document was a code of conduct strictly forbidding behavior like sexual relations backstage, while another focused on cybercrime warned about the possibility of being extorted. (The cybersecurity hotline is staffed 24/7, in case you have a 3AM hacking scare.)

There was also a 27-page pamphlet on “youth protection and safeguarding” which read like a well-intentioned handbook for new employees at an NGO.

The EBU, which runs Eurovision, is also desperate to apply a thick sheen of neutrality to the proceedings. Over the past few years, artists have been fined for any political utterance in the lead up to the festival; this year, Swedish artist Felicia was reprimanded for expressing her displeasure with Israel’s participation, saying she decided to participate to “make sure [Israel] doesn’t win.” (Her delegation did not reply to emails for comment.)

Naturally, accusations of censorship have also dogged the competition. Attendees of last year’s competition claimed that boos directed toward Israel’s chanteuse were drowned out by sound technicians. But ORF says the broadcaster will embrace cinema verité this year — boos and all.

Green told me that so-called “anti-booing” technology has never been deployed by the festival. “The trouble with this conversation is that it’s incredibly technical, right? And in some ways quite dull,” he told me. “When you have a live event, sound is processed in different ways to make sure that the experience for the audience watching on TV and online is as good as possible. That’s been incorrectly construed as some kind of attempt to suppress certain audience reactions.”

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Vienna’s “Eurovision Village” is located in a park outside Vienna’s monumental, gothic-revival city hall. Before the festival, huge cranes were hoisting a stage into place while a construction worker played hacky sack by his lonesome.

The Eurovision Village serves as a main public hub for fans throughout the competition, featuring daily live acts and public viewings. A sign affixed to a lamppost listed a gamut of prohibitions: no booze, no glue, no ladders, no drones, no “Nazi propaganda”, no baby buggies and no backpacks.

Reddit commenters are grumbling about the no-bag policy, though many seem to accept it as the price of a global festival in 2026. (One commenter recommended sewing giant pockets into your pants.) The ORF, Austria’s National Broadcaster, has released a song discouraging concertgoers from bringing even a tiny bag—“all you gotta bring is you, and a little attitude,” the lyrics go.

Naturally I forgot my press pass and tried to attend the opening ceremony at the Village with an e-ink notebook inside a little leather pouch, leading me to have a brief philosophical chat about the nature of bags with a security guard as concertgoers streamed past us.

“Can’t bring that,” he said.

“This is a bag?” I asked.

“It is. It’s a bag.”

“What about it is a bag? It’s a case.”

The guard shrugged. “It just is,” he said.

Just as I’d given up on convincing him, three police vans sped toward the Eurovision entrance, skillfully weaving around two massive trucks that had been placed in the center of Ringstrasse, which is the road that wraps itself around Vienna’s historic core. The cars looked as if they were competing in an obstacle course for stunt doubles. My cortisol spiked.

When I’d asked Green if I should expect Eurovision to feel politically intense, he’d acted as if I didn’t understand the spirit of the competition.

“Concertgoers aren’t there to protest,” he said. “They want to soak up the atmosphere, and they come really relaxed because they know, behind the scenes, there is a group of extremely brilliant people taking care of them.”

He added: “We always say Eurovision shows the world as it could be.”

But is this wishful thinking? Now that the competition is underway, we’ll see if the world proves him right.