Eurovision-related terms to know
Big Five - Frange, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK; the largest financial contributors to the contest; they go directly to the Grand Final
Delegate/delegation - used to refer to the team of representatives sent to Eurovision Week that include managers, song writers, dancers, and singers; it can also be used to refer only to the main performers
Douze points - literally "twelve points" in French; French used to be a very important language in the early years of the contest and this particular term has stuck; since 1975 douze points has been the highest number of points awarded to a favorite song
Eurovision Week - the week of events that you can buy tickets to see; includes the red carpet, award ceremonies, press conferences, parties, the six Semi Final shows (family, jury, and televised), and the three Grand Final shows
Founding Seven - Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, and Switzerland; the first participating countries at the original contest in 1956
Grand Final - the big show that everyone waits for where a winner is chosen
Junior Eurovision Song Contest - a contest for performers who are between 9 and 14 on the day of the contest; this contest began in 2003; because the contest is centered around children the contest is very wholesome and most often features the national languages of the countries represented
Jury - each country selects five music professionals from their own country to give their combined vote for the country; the jury vote is half of the points given from a country, the other half is from the public vote; after the contest, a detailed breakdown of the jury members' names and exactly how they voted is posted on the official Eurovision.tv website
Jury Show - a full run through of the show that takes place the night before the televised version; when the international juries cast their votes for the participants; this means that the juries vote on a different performance than what we see televised
National Final - a televised contest held to select the delegate to be sent to Eurovision Week; although a highly popular method of selecting a delegate, there are only four countries to have always used an NF to select their delegate, Albania, Denmark, Estonia, and Finland
Nul points - literally "zero points" in French; as with douze points this term has stuck after the years of using French at the contest; since the introduction of the current voting system in 1975 of awarding 12, 10, and 8-1 points it is much harder to earn a total of nul points, only ten countries have received nul points, Austria, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Lithuania, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK, and only two have received nul points four times, Austria and Norway; the jury and public vote have been counted separately since 2016 making it even harder to get a total nul points and so far it has only happened once to the UK in 2021
Postcard - a short video showcasing the host country and/or the delegate
Semi Finals - introduced in 2008, these semis split the contestants in half based on voting history in order to prevent bias and ten qualifiers are selected at each round to go on to the Grand Final