It’s official: After months of speculation, we have Vienna hosting Eurovision 2026 in the near future.
The Austrian national broadcaster, ÖRF, made the announcement on Wednesday, 20 August. Further, it was declared that the Eurovision Song Contest 2026 will be held 12-16 May, with the Grand Final on Saturday, 16 May.
Austria’s own JJ won the contest in Basel, Switzerland in May, giving the hosting rights back to his home country for the first time in 11 years. All three times that Austria has hosted Eurovision, it contest has taken place in Vienna. The most recent prior contest, 2015, was at the Wiener Stadthalle, which will also be the official venue for 2026.
Vienna Hosting Eurovision 2026: The Safe Play
The two finalists to host the 2026 contest were Vienna and Innsbruck, the latter being an Alpine resort city in the west of the country, having hosted Olympic Games twice in the past. Wien, of course, is the nation’s capital, and by far its largest city.
In recent years, non-capitals have been hosting the contest, and sometimes cities you would not expect. For example, Switzerland passed over its biggest and best-equipped cities, Zurich and Geneva, to hand the contest to Basel. This time, Austria went with its capital and largest city. Vienna is the largest city to host since Kyiv, Ukraine in 2017, and before that, Vienna themselves in 2015.
It would have been interesting to see Innsbruck get a shot, given the trends away from capitals and the cities you “expect” to be chosen. However, there is no doubt that Vienna has the ability to pull the contest off, and they did so just a decade ago. The city has the best venue and infrastructure of any other option in the country, by far. In the end, it is no surprise that ÖRF went with the safe and logical choice.
See you in Wien next May.