Basler Herbstmesse records more than 1 million visitors a year

Basel in autumn is politely cool, somewhere between 5 and 15˚C. Sticky coating of honeydew on the Rhine promenade gives way to rustling carpets of fallen linden leaves. Riverside buvettes pack up, even the bravest swimmers retire their river-floating habits, and umbrellas begin their seasonal comeback. But a little rain here and there won’t drive the crowd indoors. The gravitational pull of the Basel fall fair is so strong that wet weather cannot ruin the fun.

Every year, the number of visitors to Basler Herbstmesse consistently lands at over 1 million, the majority of them arriving from Switzerland, and neighboring France and Germany.

Whether they’re hunting down classic carousels, heart-stopping thrill rides, warm magenbrot, or simply the irresistible mix of medieval charm and modern spectacle, Basel’s Herbstmesse, with 460 stalls and businesses, guarantees sensory overload for visitors of every age.

In this guide, you’ll find everything you need to know about the Basler Herbstmesse, one of the most beloved Basel events and one of Europe’s largest inner-city fairs. Buckle up, Basel’s autumn magic is about to sweep you in.

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What is the Herbstmesse Basel?

The Herbstmesse Basel is a citywide festival that transforms Basel into an enormous open-air playground.

For two weeks in autumn, the city’s historic squares burst into life with traditional craft markets, thrill attractions (rollercoasters, carousels, bumper cars, and other rides), and the irresistible aromas drifting from food stalls (think molten raclette, roasted almonds, gingerbread-like magenbrot, and Basel’s beloved striped candy, mässmogge).

Basel Autumn Fair is a unique fusion of medieval tradition and modern funfair energy, the meeting point of nostalgia, excitement, and Swiss tradition that draws hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.

Basler Herbstmesse history

If you’re wondering how old the Basler Herbstmesse really is, brace yourself: this fair predates cotton candy, electricity, and even Switzerland as a federal state. Its story begins in the Middle Ages!

The origins of the Basel Autumn Fair reach back to the mid-15th century, when Pope Pius II himself issued a recommendation for holding a fair to help revive the struggling city of Basel, stricken by wars, famine, and diseases.

The papal letter sat quietly in a court drawer until July 1471, when Emperor Frederick III of the House of Habsburg granted Basel the right to host a yearly fair (Jahrmarkt or Chilbi), guaranteeing this privilege “for all time”.

What began on 27 October 1471, as a medieval marketplace with merchants, jugglers, wrestlers, fortune tellers, bearded ladies, and even prostitutes (ways to make visitors’ pockets lighter are numerous after all), has since evolved into a celebration of craftsmanship, gastronomy, and entertainment. Over the centuries, the fair became a cornerstone of Basel’s social life that reaffirmed the city’s economic and cultural importance in the region.

Today, while the neon lights and high-tech rides are unmistakably modern (it was the 20th century when electricity enabled technically sophisticated attractions), the Herbstmesse never lost its historical soul.

The fair’s uninterrupted continuity through wars, political crises, and shifting eras is a point of immense local pride. Herbstmesse Basel is a rare European medieval fair that never vanished, which is why, for many Swiss families, returning to the Herbstmesse isn’t just a fun outing. One of the oldest European fairs is their annual tradition, almost a pilgrimage to a living piece of history.

The history of Basler Herbstmesse accidents and incidents

Wherever large crowds gather, mischief tends to follow, and the Basler Herbstmesse has been proving that for over five centuries. The earliest editions already attracted a colorful cast of pimps, pickpockets, and cardsharps, prompting Basel’s council to establish a dedicated fair police, a special fair court, and even deploy mounted mercenaries to guard the roads leading into the city.

Jump to the 21st century, and while medieval swindlers have largely disappeared, technology has introduced a whole new category of mishaps.

In 2017, six people were injured when two Rock & Roller Coaster cars collided after a brake malfunction. Just moments later, a drunk man fell from the Round Up Rounder carousel after attempting to hop into a neighboring compartment mid-ride, and seriously injured his head when he hit the ground.

More recent years have featured both human and non-human errors.

In 2023, a brutal fight broke out around the Basler Herbstmesse’s boxing machines, leaving one of the teenagers with life-threatening injuries. Convinced these macho-bravado devices fuel aggressive behavior, the city has since banned boxing machines from the fair.

In 2024, the Hip Hop ride abruptly stopped due to a power outage, leaving riders hanging in an uncomfortable position for 11 minutes. 

By 2025, reports counted five brawls and five temporary expulsions from the fair. But the year's most memorable oddity came when a couple took their cat on a bumper car, sparking an unexpected debate on animal welfare. Only three lost children were registered this year, supposedly far fewer than in the past.

Despite incidents being rare and isolated, the city of Basel tried to increase oversight and even experimented with technology to keep the event safer in 2025. However, immediately after they engaged autonomous security robots to patrol the fair, these were pulled from service due to data privacy concerns.

Basel Autumn Fair’s Key Features

1. Seven distinct fairgrounds (Plätze)

Unlike most funfairs that cram everything into one field and call it a day, the Basel Autumn Fair spreads across multiple historic squares.

With each location offering something different, visitors are encouraged to wander, snack, ride, repeat… and rediscover the fair again and again from totally new angles.

Here’s what each of the Basler Herbstmesse’s locations brings to the table:

Barfüsserplatz

This super central and, by tram, easily reachable square hosts a cheerful blend of rides, games, and food stalls.

The offer at Barfüsserplatz includes family-friendly attractions (Pinky, Babyflug, Disney Dream, Duck Pavilion), but also something for thrill-seekers – the 40-meter-high chain carousel Sky Swing, or the adrenaline-packed Hangover ride.

This square is also a paradise for anyone with a sweet tooth. Think marshmallows, crepes, cotton candy, and the finest confiserie from Sprüngli, Sigrist, Wetzel, and others.

Prefer something savory? You’re covered: pinsa, tacos, currywurst, fondue, and grilled treats.

The legendary roasted chestnuts on this square are offered by the Brombin family, who’ve been perfecting them since 1927.

Barfüsserplatz is Basler Herbstmesse location that’s ideal for both younger visitors and adults seeking a lively, central fairground vibe, with Basel’s Old Town as the backdrop.

Münsterplatz

Set against Basel’s magnificent cathedral, Münsterplatz is where nostalgia rules: traditional carousels, wooden stalls, and a postcard-perfect atmosphere.

Many of the classic rides here have been delighting families for generations. They may not launch you into the sky at breakneck speed, but what they lack in intensity, they make up for in charm.

Overshadowing balloon stands, shooting and ring-throwing cars, showstoppers on this iconic square are the Crazy-Run (an original Swiss attraction ride featuring horse-drawn carriages whisking you through disco-style lighting), carousels ranging from children’s Swan Lake and Fairy Tale Flight with dragons and Aladdin’s carpet, to more thrilling Octopus, and – the tallest of them all – Bellevue, the 60-meter art nouveau Ferris wheel offering panoramic views over the city from its 42 enclosed gondolas.

In the food corner of the square, you’ll find everything from Cornish pasties, empanadas, risotto, and Swiss corn dogs to spicy raclette, freshly prepared potato chips, and grilled meats.

Dietary restrictions? You’ll also be able to get a vegetarian halloumi-burger, as well as crepes made from Swiss free-range eggs, including lactose-free and gluten-free versions.

Sweettooths will be happy to treat themselves to homemade waffles, warm pretzels, chocolate-dipped fruit skewers, and a range of mouthwatering artisan confections.

Münsterplatz is great for families, romantics, and anyone who appreciates classic fairground magic set against one of Basel’s most historic and beautiful backdrops.

Basel's Bellevue is a miniature when compared to the biggest Ferris wheels in the world. Check them out!

Messeplatz

If the Basel Autumn Fair had a “most likely to touch the sky” award, Messeplatz would win it every year. As the most modern and energetic of the Basler Herbstmesse sites, this square features high-profile rides and attractions that light up the city skyline.

Right next to the tram stop at Basel’s exhibition square, you’ll find a beloved classic: the Calypso, a 1960s carousel that spins with the kind of retro charm you can’t manufacture. It also happens to be the opening star of the Pipeaway Walk video, so take a look.

If you are a thrill-seeker, the heavy hitters are:

• Jules Verne Tower – An 80-meter-high chain carousel whips you around at up to 65 km/h. Romantic views and mild terror included.
• Deep Zone – Famously known as the fastest and wildest ride in Switzerland, this spinner will pump your adrenaline.
• Dance Jumper – A chaotic ballet of sudden drops, spins, and direction changes makes your stomach ask serious questions.

Between adrenaline rushes, Messeplatz’s bustling food and refreshment mile keeps everyone happy. You’ll find a variety of fair snacks here, from traditional Swiss cuisine to international specialties (burgers, quiches, churros, flammkuchen, arancini, kebab, fried noodles, lángos).

If you crave speed, lights, modern rides, and a healthy dose of “I probably shouldn’t have eaten that before going on Deep Zone”, Messeplatz is your kingdom.

Hallenmesse

Hallenmesse is the only indoor world of the Basler Herbtmesse, and a godsend for anyone whose cotton-candy soul melts at the first sign of rain. Set inside Messehalle 1, just steps from Messeplatz, this is where the funfair goes undercover.

The place that hosts everything from Eurovision Village to Fantasy Basel cosplays is more than capable of handling anything, including a full-blown amusement park packed under one gigantic roof. Inside, you’ll find a chaos of lights, music, snacks, rides, and games, all thriving shielded from wind and weather.

At Hall 1, you’ll spot timeless fair icons such as the Break Dance, where centrifugal force does its best to rearrange your internal organs, and the wobbly, crowd-favorite Tagada, a spinning disk that tests both balance and loyalty to whoever you’re riding with. Feeling aquatic? Step inside the oversized Waterballs and roll your way across a pool like a human hamster.

Whether you’re seeking shelter from the rain, a less windy place to snack, or a guaranteed-fun zone for kids and adults, Hallenmesse delivers the joy of a classic fairground with the comfort of a climate-controlled bubble.

Rosentalanlage

Historically the oldest fairground in Kleinbasel, Rosentalanlage is a venue built atop a former cemetery. This leafy park has transformed over the centuries into a lively venue for circuses, events, and a charming slice of the Basel Autumn Fair.

During the fair, the park blends classic nostalgia with novelty, for example, the vintage Enterprise, the waggling carousel Swing Up, the 120-degree-tilted Phoenix, or the overhead, heart-stopping sensation Hip Hop.

Prefer to stay closer to the ground (and keep your stomach where it belongs)? Hollywood Drive bumper cars let you control the chaos, one satisfying collision at a time.

Sweeten up your day with cravings such as popcorn, cotton candy, roasted almonds, and other sugar-laced treats that guarantee a happy stroll through the park!

Kasernenareal

During the Basler Herbstmesse, the vast open area near the former Rhine-side barracks transforms into the fair’s unofficial “extreme zone”, home to the boldest, loudest, and most adrenaline-charged rides.

Recent editions at Kaserne grounds included high-thrill amusements such as the 80-meter-high free-fall Fortress Tower (one of the tallest mobile spinning drop towers in the world), or Mythos (a rotating platform that spins you at speeds reaching 100 km/h).

If you prefer games over g-forces, the Kasernenareal square offers everything from ball-throwing and air-rifle shooting to chicken-flinging, bowling, and the ever-addictive Camel Race derby. Kids and young-spirited adults can try their luck at toy-grabbing crane claw machines, while fun houses like Coco Bongo or the mirror maze deliver giggles instead of whiplash.

Still, this Basler Herbstmesse place is primarily the domain of action-seekers. Classic stomach-flippers such as the Katz & Maus rollercoaster and fast-paced looping rides like Burner make Kaserne the hotspot for intensity-craving freaks.

And then there’s the fair’s most charming oddity: on the second Sunday of Basel Autumn Fair, the barracks grounds host a mass service conducted entirely in Autoscooter bumper cars. If having fun is your religion, this is the perfect moment to pray for God’s mercy at the fair, as you’ll swing, turn, and see the heavens in ways you didn’t think were possible.

Petersplatz

Petersplatz is where the Basler Herbstmesse slows down and where exhibitors celebrate craftsmanship, tradition, and the artisanal fair. This square is famous for its hundreds of market and trade stalls, offering souvenirs, pottery, and handmade goods – the classic Hääfelimärt vibe, especially along Bernoulistrasse, a tradition that’s been delighting visitors since 1877.

The Handwerkerdörfli (crafts-village) is the heart of Petersplatz, hosting live demonstrations of traditional crafts such as woodworking, weaving, printing, candle-making, or soap-making. It’s the perfect spot to watch artisans at work and pick up some unique gifts.

In comparison to loud thrill zones, Petersplatz is quieter and more relaxed. Rides here are fewer and gentler, making it ideal for families or anyone wanting a break from constant adrenaline noise. Highlights include the glowing two-story Resslirytti horse carousel and the world’s oldest mobile ghost train, the haunted Vienna Prater Ghost Train (in operation since the 1930s).

Petersplatz is also a paradise for sweets lovers, as 25 confectionery stalls serve up their best: from magenbrot to marzipan, from nougat to chestnuts, from pancakes to pastel de nata.

2. Signature Food

The mouthwatering Basler Herbstmesse food is a huge part of the fair experience. Diverse offerings at this festival range from comforting Swiss classics to international surprises.

What’s the best food to eat at the Basel Autumn Fair? Follow your nose, because walking the fair without surrendering to at least one aroma is nearly impossible.

Here are the must-try treats that define Basler Herbstmesse:

• Magenbrot – Literally “stomach bread” (once thought to aid digestion), this is Basel’s signature spiced gingerbread pastry; soft, sweet, and irresistible.
• Mässmögge – Colorful sugar candy filled with soft hazelnut praline. One of Basler Herbstmesse’s specialties.
• Gebrannte Mandeln – Not burnt almonds, as translation may suggest, but just crunchy sugar-coated roasted almonds. Sold warm in paper cones, these caramelized treats are a timeless Baseler Herbstmesse staple.
• Chäsbängel – A long bread stick filled or topped with melted Swiss cheese. This hearty, indulgent specialty has become a cult snack at Basler Herbstmesse, and the most famous place to try one is Chäsbängel Wirtschaft Zihlmann at the Petersplatz.
• Raclette & Fondue-to-go – Switzerland’s iconic cheeses, adapted for strolling through the fair.
• Langos, churros, crêpes – Global treats brought into the mix of the Swiss fair food.

If you’re looking for vegan food at Basler Herbstmesse, your best addresses are:

• Vegetario (Messeplatz) – Bright green stand serving filled flatbreads, garlic bread, and vegan burgers.
• Grill Wraps (Rosentalanlage) – Hearty vegan and vegetarian grill wraps, perfect for refueling between rides.
• Härdöpfelhüsli (Petersplatz) – Vegan potato pancakes with homemade sauces.
• Hofmann’s Risotto (Münsterplatz) – Gluten-free risotto made with premium Carnaroli rice.

3. Basler Herbstmesse attractions and rides

We’ve already teased the most popular fair attractions while exploring the locations of Basler Herbstmesse, at least how they were spread out in 2025. Keep in mind that attractions can shift squares from year to year, but the variety always mirrors the fair’s diverse crowd, from pint-sized tots discovering their first carousel to adrenaline junkies seeking a full-blown stomach workout.

Whether you crave the gentle beauty of the past, high-flying thrills, or something wonderfully weird, the fair has you covered.

Typical Basel Herbstmesse attractions include:

• Ferris wheel with city views – Slow, scenic, and perfect for selfies.
• Rollercoasters and spinning rides – For those who enjoy a side of adrenaline with their sugar rush.
• Freefall towers – Check your stomach at the gate.
• Haunted houses – Thrills, screams, and occasional jumpscares guaranteed.
• Family carousels – The classic, gentle spin that never goes out of style.
• Game booths, shooting galleries, and arcades – Skill, luck, and maybe a giant plush prize.

The true charm of the Basler Herbstmesse lies in its range and contrasts. You might ride a whimsical carousel under Münster cathedral spires one moment, then launch yourself into a spinning LED monster at Messeplatz the next.

Every year, the entertainment program brings a mix of beloved returning classics and new European rides debuting at Basel funfair, ensuring that even longtime visitors can discover fresh thrills alongside old favorites.

Need some thrill in the United States? Check out Pigeon Forge rides!

When is Basel Autumn Fair?

The Basler Herbstmesse kicks off every last Saturday of October, marked by the ceremonial ringing of the Mässglöggli bell at noon at Martinskirche, a charming tradition dating back to 1471. From that moment, Basel transforms into a citywide playground for two full weeks, or a total of 16 days.

Mark the next Basel Autumn Fair dates in your calendar: 24.10.-8.11.2026.

Basler Herbstmesse opening times

Normally, Herbstmesse opening times are 12 pm – 10 pm (Sun-Thu) and 12 pm – 11 pm (Fri-Sat).

The locations of Messeplatz and Rosentalanlage follow the same schedule, but they begin operating at 11 am.

Petersplatz location also opens at 11 am, but closes at 8 pm.

Basel Autumn Fair tickets

Admission to the fairgrounds of the Basel Autumn Fair is free, as it’s a public city festival. But if you want to hop on rides, play games, or indulge in the culinary delights, you’ll need to pay per attraction. Prices typically range between CHF 4 and CHF 12, depending on the ride.

A pro tip for ride-hungry visitors: traditionally, the rides are free for the first hour of the fair (or at least the first quarter of an hour). This creates buzzing queues in front of popular attractions, so plan strategically if you want to snag free rides at different venues.

The luckiest family, however, can win the Golden Jeton. Introduced in 2023, this coveted Basler Herbstmesse golden token secures unlimited free rides for four during the first weekend. An equivalent to golden tickets for Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, the social-media raffle winners are announced at the opening ceremony.

Otherwise, tickets are purchased directly at each ride or stall. Most establishments accept cash and cards, although some prefer the good old-fashioned cash.

Some of the best Basel attractions cost nothing. Check out free things to do in Basel!

How to Get Around the Herbstmesse

Since the Basler Herbstmesse takes place across multiple squares, walking is by far the best way to explore. Stroll from Barfüsserplatz to Münsterplatz, hop over to Messeplatz, and let the sights, sounds, and smells guide you – you’ll discover something new at every corner.

Public transport in Basel is excellent, with trams and buses connecting all major fair locations.

Parking around the Old Town is limited, so visitors are encouraged to come car-free.

Where to park at Basler Herbstmesse?

If driving is unavoidable, Basel has several central parking garages, with Parkhaus Messe being the most convenient for fair visitors. Open 24/7, it offers 1,200 spaces at a rate of CHF 2–3 per hour, depending on your arrival/departure time. From there, it’s just a short stroll to the bustling fun.

Where to stay for Basler Herbstmesse?

If you want to be in the center of the action and see amusement rides from above, the Hyperion Hotel Basel is located just at the Messeplatz. Check out prices on your platform of choice: Booking, Agoda, Trip, or Expedia.

For other accommodation options in Basel, see here.

Get a taste of the fair atmosphere in our Basel Herbstmesse YouTube video!

Why the Basler Herbstmesse Is Worth Visiting

As one of Europe’s oldest continually running funfairs, with an unbroken legacy of over five and a half centuries, the Basler Herbstmesse has preserved its original role as a gathering point for merchants, artisans, and citizens, while evolving into a modern festival of sights, sounds, and flavors.

Its setting in Basel’s Old Town squares, framed by cathedral spires and historic architecture, is unmatched. Even more unique, the fair sprawls across the city center, from medieval plazas to contemporary sites, seamlessly mixing vintage carousels with cutting-edge thrill rides. This combination of old-world charm and modern excitement gives the Herbstmesse a quality that feels both timeless and fresh.

Basler Herbstmesse is a celebration that bridges medieval heritage with contemporary entertainment

For locals, the fair signals the changing of the seasons; for visitors, it’s a chance to immerse themselves in Swiss tradition, from artisan crafts at Petersplatz to mouthwatering magenbrot and roasted almonds, and from gentle family carousels to adrenaline-pumping rides at Messeplatz.

Whether you’re a thrill-seeker, foodie, photographer, or culture lover, the Basler Herbstmesse is more than just a fair. It is a living cultural asset of Basel, a celebration that bridges medieval heritage with contemporary entertainment.

If you’re planning a trip to Switzerland in late October or early November, don’t miss this vivid, atmospheric, and historic celebration. Walk the squares, taste the treats, ride the attractions, and soak in the unique magic of Basel in autumn; it’s an experience you’ll want to relive year after year.

Would you like to visit Basler Herbstmesse, Basel’s autumn fair?
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In the order of appearance, the authors of the photographs in this article are as follows: 

Night panorama of Basel (cover image) - Michael Kuhn kuhnmi, licensed under CC BY 2.0
Bellevue Ferris wheel - PiConsti, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Black-and-white photographs from the 1970s - Willy Pragher, licensed under CC BY 3.0
Chain carousel lights - PiConsti, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Part of Ferris wheel and cathedral - Chieh 捷, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Drop tower in Messe hole - Andreas Schwarzkopf, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
Hallenmesse and church service at Autoscooter - Basler Herbstmesse official media
Hip Hop - Ivan Kralj
Resslirytti carousel - Rolf Weber @roweb, licensed under CC0 1.0
Cotton candy girl - Georg Holderied polapix, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Rollercoaster - Roland Zumbühl Picswiss, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
Minster and Ferris wheel - vivalatinoamerica, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Resslirytti carousel (pin image) - Simon Kessler, Unsplash 

The post Basler Herbstmesse: Your Ultimate Guide to Switzerland’s Oldest Autumn Fair appeared first on Pipeaway.

The advisors on cybersecurity noticed the “damaged frame” only after the event, requesting the YouTube removals without informing the Canton they were engaged to advise for two months!

The bizarre incident, which was largely ignored for weeks by both the Croatian performer and the city host of the event at St. Jakob-Park stadium on May 17, now finally gets some resolution thanks to the city official who previously had to tackle a hot potato of censorship, bringing even the National Cyber Security Centre in the explanation of the timeline.

The final version of what actually happened looks somewhat different. “Google Switzerland was informed about the damaged frame by the Cybercrime Department of the Canton of Basel-Landschaft on May 23 and asked to remove the content from YouTube”, Bosshardt found out after a deeper dig. “The legal department at Google Switzerland apparently also concluded that it would be problematic if the frame continued to be broadcast on YouTube and blocked the videos accordingly.”

The mentioned Cybercrime Department had acted in an advisory role regarding the cybersecurity of Switzerland’s largest ESC public viewing event. These advisors noticed what is now called a “damaged frame” and attributed it to a third party, a stock footage provider in Australia, only after the event.

And then, it took us weeks to find out that it was exactly the cybersecurity advisor who requested the Eurovision content removal from YouTube. This department, Bosshardt clarified, “is based in a different canton, which is why this information was not automatically shared within the Canton of Basel-Stadt” (the canton that engaged it for the advisory role).

If you can see the following video, thank this privilege to not being in Switzerland!

No Damage Done – Except to YouTubers

In a separate statement to regional daily newspaper bz Basel, Christoph Bosshardt reiterated that Basel-Stadt did not file a complaint about the controversial Eurovision visuals, and added: “No damage has been done.”

But the story doesn’t wrap up so neatly. Besides the general idea that “calls to support a criminal organization are punishable by law in Switzerland”, no clarifications for the takedown of videos from various independent YouTube channels were offered.

Indeed, if calls to support criminal organizations are punishable, then who’s being prosecuted for dispersing this call at Arena Plus? For now, it seems YouTube content creators have taken the direct hit for the “punishable call” projected in front of thousands of stadium visitors – not by these YouTubers who merely documented what was shown, but by the City of Basel. The City that now says, “No damage has been done.”

In fact, in the same bz Basel article, titled “ESC in Basel hacked by Islamists”, Bosshardt offered more background: “The video effects were put together by us, but the person in charge had already acquired the raw material a few years ago.”

So, if we have an event where supposedly “no damage was done”, with outdated materials that circulated on the web for years, and now flashed in front of the Eurovision eyes in speeds that would have to establish subliminal marketing as a source of miraculous influence, and then also this call featuring an email address that doesn’t exist, and a bitcoin wallet that’s been technically dead since 2015… What crime are we actually talking about?

On one hand, we’re told this was a serious security threat worthy of cybercrime intervention. On the other hand, officials downplay the impact. How can it be both – a threat severe enough to pull the plug on YouTube creators, yet also something so inconsequential that “no damage has been done”?

Basel Police: ‘We know nothing’

The bizarre story might end up being as ephemeral as the fleeting frames that launched the avalanche of interpretations.

If what appeared on screen truly qualifies as a crime – punishable by law in Switzerland – then what exactly is law enforcement doing about it? As indicated by bz Basel, not much: “The Basel-Stadt cantonal police have no knowledge of the incident in St. Jakob-Park, according to the police.”

That’s an interesting claim, considering Basel-Stadt cantonal police were formally notified of the incident on June 23^rd – by Pipeaway. In fact, the Department of Justice and Security of the Canton of Basel-Stadt responded to our request for information with an automatic thank-you note, saying: “We will process your message within working days during our office hours.”

In their defense, they didn’t specify within how many working days the answer could be expected. So, on July 1^st, we followed up. Again, no response.

And now? They say that they “have no knowledge of the incident”.

The entire saga of Eurovision’s subliminal whispers might go down in local history as a story of institutional silence, where all included actors, from the artist and the concert management to the police, went mute.

When a vague allegation of conspiracy is used to justify a nationwide censorship (the one Cybercrime Department of the Canton of Basel-Landschaft never even thought of announcing publicly, until pushed by the press), silence is not the best communication tactic.

That is, if the idea of some “Islamist conspiracy” was not just a smoke screen for a completely different story.

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From a cybersecurity perspective, the NCSC does not see any issues with the video in questionManuela Sonderegger, National Cyber Security Centre

To rewind, Pipeaway first spotted the suspicious flash screens in Baby Lasagna act shortly after the May 17 event. One of these brief visual appearances contained a message urging secret support for jihad. The City of Basel, as the organizer, as well as the Croatian musician, both went silent as soon as we brought the topic to their attention, more than once.

However, two weeks after the original article was published on June 14, all YouTube creators who’d uploaded videos of the Arena Plus event began receiving takedown notices in Switzerland, citing government legal complaints.

In Basel City’s response, Christoph Bosshardt, Head of External Affairs and Marketing for the Canton of Basel-Stadt, explained that problematic material originated from stock footage (licensed pre-recorded video clips) and was not noticed before the show. “When the hidden frame was detected, the stock footage platform was informed, and the incident was reported to the National Cyber Security Centre”, Bosshardt said. “Whilst there was never an intention to censor the show, Basel supports any measures that prevent the spread of harmful hidden messages and does not want Arena Plus or any of its other events to be a platform for such content.”

But now, the very same National Cyber Security Centre says not only that they didn’t have anything to do with the takedown case, but that, from a cybersecurity perspective, they also don’t see any issues in the video.

Switzerland’s Cyber Watchdogs Say Baby Lasagna Video Not a Threat

“The NCSC is mandated by federal law to protect Switzerland’s critical infrastructure from cyber threats and to increase Switzerland’s cyber resilience”, said Manuela Sonderegger, Head of Information and Media at the Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport within the NCSC.

“The NCSC is not a law enforcement agency and therefore has no investigative mandate. We are therefore unaware of why the YouTube video you mentioned was blocked, as this does not fall within our duties. We can confirm that the NCSC did not request Google/YouTube to block or restrict any content”, the agency told Pipeaway.

The statement doubles down on this point: “The NCSC has not been involved in this case and will not be looking into it, as it does not fall within our duties”.

Specifically asked about the danger of subliminal messages in the modern online environment, Mrs. Sonderegger was quite clear: “From a cybersecurity perspective, the NCSC does not see any issues with the video in question.”

“We Support Preventive Measures” – Just Don’t Ask Who Took Them

So if YouTube really did remove Arena Plus videos “to comply with local laws”, questions remain. Which laws were broken? And which government entity filed the legal complaint?

In the context of what Basel City said, Mr. Bosshardt’s statement now appears incomplete at best, misleading at worst.

Were “harmful hidden messages” harmful for the audience, or the reputation of Basel City?

The National Cyber Security Centre, the only government body Basel City claimed to communicate with, as an official competence center for cybersecurity, has firmly denied any involvement and sees no cybersecurity threat in the footage.

Also, if it took only one working day for NCSC to respond to Pipeaway’s inquiry, it surely took the same amount of time to tell the City of Basel there was no cybersecurity threat. So why did the City even mention this agency in their public statement?

Were “harmful hidden messages”, labeled as such by the City of Basel, harmful to the audiences, or harmful to the reputation of the organizer of the event, flashing unchecked footage in front of the eyes of 36.000 stadium visitors?

Of course, when YouTube mentions “government entity” requesting the blockage of certain content, this entity could have easily been the City of Basel. But if they did trigger the takedown, why did they not clearly take the responsibility for the action?

Instead of a straightforward explanation, we were left with a PR riddle: “We didn’t mean to censor, but we support preventive measures against the spread of harmful hidden messages.”

Mr. Bosshardt could undoubtedly clarify this situation. But until July 21, he is officially “out of office”.

After Mr. Bosshardt's return from holiday, we have received the newest Basel City explanation: it was the Cybercrime Department of the Canton of Basel-Landschaft that initiated the video removal from Google, essentially disagreeing with NCSC's point of view on the matter.

What do you think about this drama unfolding?
Feel free to express your opinion in the comment section, and pin this article for later!

The post Swiss National Cyber Security Centre Denies Role in Arena Plus Video Takedown appeared first on Pipeaway.

The problematic message was buried inside third-party stock footage used at the event. Once detected, the case was handed over to Switzerland’s National Cyber Security Centre

With 36.000 stadium attendees, the Arena Plus event in Basel was supposed to be remembered as the greatest public viewing of the Eurovision Song Contest. But now, memory is being erased, with cold black screens showing up instead of all YouTube footage of the show in Switzerland.

The purge came after Pipeaway revealed that subliminal messages had been projected on the stadium’s screen cube during Croatian star Marko Purišić’s performance (you might know him better as Baby Lasagna – more on the controversy here). Among the flashing frames: an image calling for anonymous donations to jihad.

What some Eurovision fans initially dismissed as a hoax, YouTube has now confirmed as very real. And with the platform removing Arena Plus videos on request from Swiss authorities, Basel City has at last issued its side of the story.

According to them, the message was buried inside third-party stock footage used at the event – footage that slipped past organizers unnoticed. Once detected, the case was handed over to Switzerland’s National Cyber Security Centre (read the NCSC statement here).

Still, the city downplays the visuals’ impact, insisting the frames (appearing three times during the “Rim Tim Tagi Dim” performance) lasted only “a split second” and were “not visible to guests in the Arena Plus”.

Yet there’s a curious contradiction here: if the messages were imperceptible – as subliminals are designed to be – why did those “invisible” frames become harmful as soon as they went online? Why was the footage not deemed inappropriate for only Basel-owned platforms, but was instead subjected to full-scale YouTube censorship?

Emails also went subliminal

In Basel’s official statement, Christoph Bosshardt – Head of External Affairs and Marketing in the Department of Presidential Affairs of the Canton of Basel-Stadt – offered an apology for Pipeaway’s repeated emails “going unnoticed” at media-arenaplus@bs.ch. “This email address is no longer used since the event is over”, explained Mr. Bosshardt.

We should clarify, however, that Pipeaway’s inquiries to the official media contact for the event were sent on May 20^th, May 21^st, June 10^th, and June 23^rd. Only the final message bounced back as “not delivered”.

In fact, the first information request on the authorship of the cube visuals that turned problematic was sent practically on the second working day after the Eurovision finale – on Tuesday, for the event that finished in the early hours of Sunday, May 18^th. That’s hardly a late or unreasonable follow-up.

It is somewhat odd that emails go unnoticed on the email address set up specifically and only so that media inquiries could get noticed, especially when the largest cultural event of Basel’s year is in question.

When an event ends with a cybersecurity investigation, one would expect a bit more attention to the inbox.

The Show Must Go Off

To close, here is the full response from Basel City – the first and only official comment addressing the mysterious subliminal frame that flickered through the Arena Plus show.

Basel supports any measures that prevent the spread of harmful hidden messages and does not want Arena Plus or any of its other events to be a platform for such contentChristoph Bosshardt

Below is the statement in its entirety:

The City of Basel is proud to have hosted the Arena plus Public Viewing Show with many great artists. Videos of the event and the great atmosphere have been widely shared on Social Media, for example on @eurovisioncountdown, where they can still be found.

As part of the live show, stock footage was used on the screens. After the show in May, it was brought to the organisers’ attention that a hidden frame appeared in the footage. This frame lasted for a split second and thus went unnoticed during the preparations of the screen content; also, it was not visible to guests in the Arena Plus. When the hidden frame was detected, the stock footage platform was informed, and the incident was reported to the National Cyber Security Centre.

Whilst there was never an intention to censor the show, Basel supports any measures that prevent the spread of harmful hidden messages and does not want Arena Plus or any of its other events to be a platform for such content.

Best regards,

Christoph Bosshardt
Head of External Affairs and Marketing
Department of Presidential Affairs of the Canton of Basel-Stadt

After his return from holiday, Christoph Bosshardt issued a new statement that sheds a different light on what actually happened after Arena Plus - check it out here!

What do you think about Basel City’s reaction to the content security breach?
Leave your comment below, and pin this article for later!

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you click on them and make a purchase, Pipeaway may make a small commission, at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting our work!

Images in this article have been sourced from Mood Studios AG via Kanton Basel-Stadt.

The post Basel City Speaks Up After “Harmful Hidden Messages” Found at Eurovision: ‘We Never Intended to Censor the Show’ appeared first on Pipeaway.

YouTube removes content where necessary to comply with local lawsYouTube

As we first reported from St. Jakob-Park stadium – the site of the largest ESC Basel public viewing event – Croatian artist Baby Lasagna (real name Marko Purišić) took the stage on May 17th. But while the audience was swept up in the glittery chaos of Eurovision kitsch, a different show was playing out on the massive screens.

Hidden within the on-stage visuals, subliminal messages flashed for just a single frame each. Among the pixelated whispers: a call to fund jihad, complete with a crypto wallet address traced back to Islamic struggle action from over a decade ago.

Despite multiple inquiries to both Baby Lasagna and the City of Basel, the event’s organizer, no one stepped forward to explain how these digital Easter eggs made it onto the screen, or who planted them.

Now, YouTube videos showing the incident have vanished in Switzerland, blocked with little fanfare. Creators who uploaded footage from the stadium received a concise message: “We have received a legal complaint from a government entity regarding your content.”

Most of these uploaders had no idea their clips might contain something problematic. Pipeaway was the only international media outlet covering this story.

“YouTube removes content where necessary to comply with local laws”, the e-mail titled YouTube Video Blocked: Government Request said.

While the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) still juggles with old hot potatoes, including televote controversies and the never louder question of why is Israel in Eurovision, it seems the subliminal scandal poses fresh questions.

It’s not enough to just shift the responsibility to the City of Basel as an organizer of the event if the attendees (fans of Eurovision!) can so easily get exposed to something considered dangerous enough to file an official takedown request.

After all, if this happens, we are not talking about just some fringe online conspiracy, but about a real-world hazard that demands answers.

This is one of the videos you cannot see anymore in Switzerland. All because of what happens at around 00:54, for a frame of a second!

What do Swiss laws say?

According to Article 260 of the Swiss Penal Code, anyone who supports a criminal or terrorist organization in its activities can face up to ten years in prison or a significant financial fine.

Additionally, a paragraph focused on the financing of terrorism says that “anyone who, intending to finance a criminal act aimed at intimidating a population or coercing a state or international organization into doing or refraining from doing something, collects or provides funds shall be liable to a custodial sentence of up to five years or to a monetary penalty”.

At this point, it’s still unclear whether Swiss police are heading in this direction, or even who could be under suspicion for the action that initiated the total pull-out request from YouTube on Swiss territory.

Is the Croatian musician, the City of Basel, or the technical team of Swiss national broadcaster SSR-SRG (which may have handled the arena’s video feeds) under investigation?

Pipeaway has reached out to the authorities for clarification and will update this story as soon as more information becomes available.

Read Basel City's statement on how they found "harmful hidden messages" and what they did afterwards! Also, check out what National Cyber Security Centre had to say about this "threat"!

Between Vylan and villain – Switzerland deletes Lasagna

As the original article explained, the entire case is shrouded in mystery. If Baby Lasagna’s subliminal messages were an intentional artistic statement, why has the author not owned them? If the performance was hijacked, why haven’t the artist and the organizers come out to condemn it?

Instead, the first real move came not from the artist, nor the event hosts, but from Swiss authorities, who initiated YouTube takedowns of the performance across Switzerland. It feels less like censorship and more like an effort to drain the swamp of speculation – step one in figuring out what actually happened on that Basel stage.

Swiss YouTube block for Baby Lasagna arrives after British police started investigating Bob Vylan’s “Death to the IDF” and before Thompson, Croatia’s most controversial artist, hosts the largest concert in the world

The timeline offers more than coincidence. The performance took place just two days after Switzerland officially banned Hamas and its proxy groups – and in that light, the authorities may appear unwilling to leave any potential provocations to chance.

However, this reaction landed silently, while Europe was already buzzing about what should or shouldn’t be allowed on concert stages.

It all happened just after British police opened a criminal investigation into Bob Vylan’s performance at Glastonbury Festival, where he led crowds in chanting “Death, death to the IDF”.

Baby Lasagna’s Swiss YouTube ban also comes several days before his namesake, Marko Perković Thompson, Croatia’s most divisive musician, is expected to draw half a million fans to Zagreb’s Hippodrome in what should become the world’s largest paid concert. Thompson, who has a long track record of glorifying the fascist Ustaše regime, has been banned in several countries (including Switzerland) – yet Croatian authorities rarely act, despite the neo-Nazi salutes, symbols, and disturbing messages his shows often feature.

Before chanting “Death to the IDF” at Glastonbury Festival, English punk rapper Bob Vylan explained his not-at-all-subliminal message!

Lasagna-style layers of silence

Engaged musicians always had politically loud voices. Some use them for good, others against it.

Somewhere between Vylan and Thompson (and arguably miles apart from both), Baby Lasagna now floats in limbo: one of Croatia’s most successful Eurovision stars, yet oddly silent the moment one website asked what exactly had flashed beneath his feet, secretly served to 36,000 unsuspecting concert visitors.

Swiss authorities, not just geographically between Brits and Croats, for now, haven’t jumped into the anti-Semitic witch hunt targeting pro-Palestine performers like their UK colleagues did. Nor have they embraced the Croatian-style silence, where radical speech cloaks in “patriotic” banners.

For now, in the tradition of Helvetic neutrality, Switzerland has quietly limited public access to Baby Lasagna’s footage, claiming it doesn’t “comply with local law”.

Instead of just “punishing” YouTube uploaders who documented the public concert only to have it excluded from views in the host country of Eurovision, the authorities will have to say – clearly – which laws have been broken, and who is the culprit.

What do you think about the Swiss authorities taking down all YouTube videos featuring Baby Lasagna’s subliminal messages?
Leave your comments below and pin this article for later!     

The post Disappearing Act: Baby Lasagna’s Performance Videos Banned in Switzerland appeared first on Pipeaway.

You struggle to believe that? See the newest Eurovision controversy for yourself!

Still haven’t noticed a thing? Watch again. And try not to blink. Exactly like in the subliminal messaging theory, the influence-striving idea appears as a flashing image, briefly, in the blink of an eye. Unless you were watching the footage frame by frame, you’d have missed it.

The subliminal cue to finance jihad in secret flashed three times during Baby Lasagna’s “Rim Tim Tagi Dim”

Just after the Croatian artist who topped the Eurovision 2024 public vote sang that “anxiety attacks”, the thing happened. Baby Lasagna band went into a full-on head-shaking “Rim Tim Tagi Dim” climax. Simultaneously, visuals ramped up into a rapid-fire frenzy, bombarding eye retinas of the unsuspecting euphoric crowd. No time for interpretation. Optic nerves carried them to their brains, for nesting.

It was a feel-good moment for 36,000 visitors at Joggeli stadium. They cheered and sang along, danced the iconic elbow pump move, and even recorded the entire performance with smartphones, for a repeated viewing at home, or sharing them online, like a “memory”.

One of the electric signals infiltrating the audience’s optic tracts delivered a chilling subliminal cue: “Fund the Islamic Struggle Without Leaving a Trace”. The subliminal message flashed three times during the song. It was embedded with an entire instruction on how to transfer bitcoins to the United States jihadis.

The crypto wallet isn’t fiction – it’s real, dates back to 2012, and has previously been flagged in investigations as a suspected stream for financing the terrorist organization Islamic State.

If you're in Switzerland, you won't be able to see YouTube videos of Baby Lasagna and the entire Arena Plus, the greatest public viewing event in Eurovision history. That's because, following this article, the Swiss authorities blocked all footage containing Lasagna's act from YouTube on July 1st, 2025.

TL;DR: During Baby Lasagna’s Eurovision pre-show in Basel, Switzerland, subliminal visuals - including an old pro-jihad fundraising message - flashed onscreen to 36,000 unsuspecting spectators. Whether it was art, activism, propaganda, or just a deeply twisted joke, no one has claimed responsibility.

What is subliminal messaging?

Subliminal messaging is the use of stimuli – usually visual or auditory – delivered below the threshold of conscious perception, to influence thoughts, feelings, behavior, or decisions… Without the receiving individual even realizing it.

The information is flashed so briefly or hidden so subtly that our conscious mind doesn’t notice it. But the subconscious part of the mind might.

Subliminal messages typically show up in formats like:

• Single-frame images hidden in videos or film reels
• Words or images embedded in pictures, logos, or ads (hello, conspiracy theorists!)
• Low-volume audio buried under louder music or speech

Does that really work, though? Subliminal cues could have mild effects in priming (for instance, pre-exposing us to certain words might influence our social and intellectual performance, perception, or motivation). However, evidence doesn’t support that they could turn us into mind-controlled zombies.

Despite this, advertisers, artists, and propagandists have all experimented with this powerful idea.

The concept gained attention in 1957, when market researcher James Vicary claimed he flashed phrases like “Drink Coca-Cola” and “Eat popcorn” in a movie theater to boost sales. He later admitted to making it all up.

In the 1980s, accusations of subliminal messages in music (backmasking, or recording audio messages backward) led to moral panic. The US Christian fundamentalists believed Satan himself invaded rock music so he could infiltrate innocent minds. In response, they organized dramatic record-smashing rituals in churches, because nothing says salvation like burning vinyl.

Whether real or suspected, the history of subliminal messaging includes “The Exorcist” 1973 movie (director William Friedkin tried to upgrade our nightmares by inserting brief flashes of a white-faced demon), George W. Bush’s 2000 political campaign (while criticizing Democrats, the ad briefly flashed the word ‘RATS’), and a myriad of examples in Walt Disney’s work (from the alleged ‘666’ hidden in the company logo to the secret society Illuminati referenced in “DuckTales” series).

What really happened at Arena Plus?

Arena Plus in Basel was marketed as a “spectacular pre-show with international and national artists, ESC stars”.

On May 17^th, 2025, while Eurovision artists were warming up in St. Jakobshalle, a much larger-capacity venue across the street had a spectacle of its own.

They say St. Jakob-Park stadium is one of THE places to visit in Basel on any given day. But that evening, the “top-class show program” featured Lochus Alphorn Quartett, Anna Rossinelli,  Kate Ryan, Marko Purišić aka Baby Lasagna, Luca Hänni, DJ Antoine, and Marc Sway.

Later on, the audience would cheer and sing with Eurovision acts broadcast live on quadruple LED screens, and even have a Eurovision moment of their own, joining the SING!Basel choir in the largest ABBA sing-along. “Waterloo, I was defeated, you won the war…”

It was a night to remember; six hours of entertainment, with over a third performed live on a gigantic stage cube (20 x 20 x 10 meters), smack in the middle of the football pitch.

The undisputed highlight of the indoor arena was an interval act of Baby Lasagna and Käärijä battle “Eurodab”, seamlessly blended into songs of “Rim Tim Tagi Dim” and “Cha Cha Cha”, the audience’s favorites from Eurovision editions when second places were not connected with televote manipulation allegations.

But before the Croatian Eurovision vice-champion would join forces with the Finnish one in front of the entire world, Arena Plus had a privileged round of decompress. “One more time for all the good times, Rim-tim-tagi-digi, dim-tim-tim…” echoed on Switzerland’s largest football stadium.

“Baby Lasagna made the stadium shake”, Basler Zeitung reported, describing the 36.000 fans as ‘intoxicated’.

After a thorough frame-by-frame analysis of the Arena Plus footage, we know that the Baby Lasagna band was not the only reason for the intoxication. A lot more slipped in through the wide-open eyes of the receptive audience that just came to experience some Eurovision fun.

On July 3rd, Basel City, the organizer of Arena Plus, finally released a statement, explaining how "harmful hidden messages" appeared on their screens. Read it here! On July 7th, National Cyber Security Centre released a statement that says they didn't find "any issues with the videos".

Glitches during Baby Lasagna’s set

Supported by the ecstatic arena fans, Baby Lasagna tore through “Biggie Boom Boom” and “Rim Tim Tagi Dim” with an expected dynamic flair. High-energy beats and the artist’s signature intensity brought the stadium to its feet, eyes locked on the massive central screens.

As the famous Croatian song surged into its final crescendo, something was off. The image flickered at a rate that would normally require an epileptic seizure warning. But one could hardly put a finger on any concrete source of discomfort. Everyone was too busy swallowing the most popular song of Eurovision 2024.

To the naked eye, it was just a flurry of red, green, and white flashes. But once you get to a machine more sophisticated than human eyesight, and slow down the footage, you start discovering visual injections that beg to be decoded. What did the author want to say?

Here are some of the glitches appearing during Baby Lasagna’s performance that I first managed to identify:

Glitch City (Pokémon)

One still exposed a glitched screen straight from the original Pokémon game (Blue version) in 1996. The Pokémon community often refers to this type of visual anomaly as Glitch City – it occurs due to errors in the role-playing game’s memory, often triggered by specific in-game actions and manipulations.

Virtual Boy logo (Nintendo)

Another visual that flashed before the Arena Plus audience’s eyes was the logo for the Nintendo Virtual Boy, an ill-fated red-and-black console released in 1995. This gaming system was designed to simulate 3D via a technique called parallax. Its display, viewed through an eyeshade, featured two monochrome red screens, where oscillating mirrors created a full image. The product flopped, but it left a legacy of eerie digital alienation.

JODI (Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans)

One detected frame bursting beneath Baby Lasagna’s feet was a disorienting homepage for the wwwwwwwww.jodi.org project (the standard www prefix is exaggerated to 9 w’s). Digital pranksters and web art pioneers Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans created this scrambled design landscape using raw HTML. Since the mid-1990s, the duo has been turning the conventions of the internet upside down, exploring the beauty of computer malfunction and code manipulation, inserting glitches into iconic video games, and engaging in hacktivism – manipulating digital spaces to make us rethink online interactions.

Machine learning model training

Another freeze-frame showed a snapshot of a machine learning model mid-training. It’s tracking the progress of the training process, including loss, processing speed, etc. Most likely, it’s a text classification or natural language processing (NLP) task using fastText, the open-source library created by Facebook’s AI Research (FAIR) lab. Someone, somewhere, was teaching machines how to read, predict, and respond.

MRI scan of the head

The next momentary flicker in Baby Lasagna’s act appeared to be a medical scan, an MRI or CT of a human head, taken on April 5^th, 1999. Memory meets machine.

You got it by now… In a short timeframe of “Rim Tim Tagi Dim”’s intro, interlude, and post-chorus, we are flooded with a digital rebus of distorted blips, with artifacts, numbers, and visual noise. They all exist on the intersection of human and machine intelligence, practically exploring ways to break into the system we call memory – a process of storing past experiences so they could be used to influence future actions.

EBU seems to have problems with organizing live concerts. Their newest flop is having two-thirds of the continent excluded from the Eurovision Song Contest Live Tour. Check out how these summer concerts became a privilege of only wealthy Western Europeans!

Subliminal Messages Hidden in Plain Sight – Somebody’s Watching You

Atop the Arena Plus cube-shaped structure – reminiscent of Kaaba, Islam’s holiest site in Mecca – flamethrowers shot bursts of fire in the air. Explosions synced with Baby Lasagna’s music. And then, a giant eye stared at the stadium. Well, stare is a generous term. Remember, each of these “interruptions” lasted exactly one frame! In standard video rate, that’s 1/30th of a second.

But pause it at just the right moment, and there it is: a close-up, pixelated black-and-white eye, rendered in a halftone effect. Much like the graphic pattern Eurovision uses for its branding, except the EBU turns dots into hearts.

You could interpret the unseen eye as just some pop art detail. Its dramatic gaze could invoke the surveillance culture of “Big Brother”.

The eye flicker file is available on the Videezy video community, and online visual search delivers two known uses.

One accompanied the first physical release from Lightsurf Tapes, dedicated to providing physical memories in the form of CDs and cassette tapes.

The second appearance of this very eye occurs in something much more intense – at the start of an 8-minute video titled “Torn Land, Palestinians Story”, uploaded to YouTube by Khaled Hafez on October 28^th, 2023, exactly three weeks after the Hamas attacks in Southern Israel. At the time of writing, the video had only 4 views.

Despite the nanoscopic reach, it managed to get flagged by the YouTube algorithm. I could watch it only on a mobile phone, after a double content warning. “This content may be inappropriate for some users. Do you wish to continue?” “The following content may contain graphic or violent imagery. Cancel/confirm”

Click confirm, and you’ll be shown a chronology of pain. The video brings archival footage that tells a story before and after the 1948 Nakba, referring to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine to make room for the creation of Israel.

“How many people
did you kill?”,
the interviewer asks.

“I didn’t count”,
the man responds,
with laughter.

Before, Palestine was, the video says, a place where “Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived together peacefully”. But after the turning point, the Zionist forces continued with systematic brutality – crimes against humanity, massacres, occupation.

The video includes disturbing testimonies of elderly Zionist soldiers from Alon Schwarz‘s 2022 documentary “Tantura”, recounting with unsettling ease, even pride, acts of rape and murder of minors.

“How many people did you kill?”, the interviewer asks.

“I didn’t count”, the man responds, with laughter.

The video continues through the Sabra and Shatila Massacre, the First and Second Intifadas, and the events of October 2023, each claiming thousands of Palestinian victims.

It ends with photographs of wounded and murdered children, followed by the message: “Be fair. Don’t accept the occupation anywhere.”

If the video on YouTube won’t load, the creator also uploaded it to several Reddit threads, so you can try here.

Fund the Islamic Struggle Without Leaving a Trace

The most controversial subliminal message that flashed during Baby Lasagna’s performance was “Fund the Islamic Struggle Without Leaving a Trace”. It blipped three times during “Rim Tim Tagi Dim”‘s most dramatic moments, at 00:12, 00:35, and 02:54.

The encouragement for the untraceable financing of jihad also included the Arabic phrase “السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته,” which translates to “Peace be upon you, and God’s mercy and blessings”.

The green text against a black background was a brief manifesto allegedly from “a group of young Muslim brothers that have no affiliation to any politicized movements or groups”, operating on both coasts of the United States. They claimed to work with recent reverts to Islam and to be “training brothers to struggle to establish a new Islamic front both in the US and around the world”, mentioning South America in particular.

As asking for money to support the youth’s desire to “struggle in a defensive way against our enemies” attracts “far too much surveillance”, they decided to gather resources online. The message closes with certain Abu-Mustafa’s email address for communication, and an alphanumeric key for the “uncommunicated contribution” in bitcoins.

The mentioned email address was hosted by Tor Mail, a free provider that didn’t require the revealing of the IP address. This service was shut down in August 2013, after the FBI took down Freedom Hosting, which had been linked to a child pornography arrest.

This suggests the telop wasn’t a newly created graphic, but a screenshot of the site that appeared on the dark web in the mid-2010s. It circulated in a pro-ISIS forum in Turkey, calling for covert funding of jihadists via crypto, outside the control of the conventional banking system.

In 2015, Ido Wulkan, a senior web-intelligence analyst at S2T (a Singapore-based cyberintelligence firm), claimed he had “concrete evidence” linking the dark wallet to the Islamic State’s terror cell in the US. It’s worth noting that this Tel Aviv-based analyst was interviewed by Haaretz, the oldest daily newspaper in Israel, and despite the title “new evidence suggests”, the article didn’t present this suggestive proof.

Speaking of analysts, there were also those who suspected that the darknet site was just a scam. After all, it existed on the deep web since at least 2013 (probably even 2012), while the Islamic State’s caliphate wasn’t declared before June 2014.

In any case, the bitcoin account tied to the subliminal message was active between September 2012 and June 2015, logging just six transactions in total. There were two incoming transfers totaling 5.07099659 BTC ($ 555,876, at current rates). The remaining balance is 0.03168819 BTC, worth approximately 3,330 USD today. You’ll struggle with funding any struggle with that amount!

Jihad definition

What is jihad, anyway? Contrary to Hollywood scripts and certain Reddit threads, jihad doesn’t automatically mean “holy war”. At its core, this Arabic term refers to a “struggle” or “striving” – which could mean an internal, personal struggle for spiritual growth and self-improvement (greater jihad or al-jihād al-akbar), and an external effort to defend or advance the faith, fight for the community, even in warfare, but typically in self-defense (lesser jihad or al-jihād al-aṣghar). While some extremist groups have co-opted the term to justify acts of violence, mainstream Islamic teachings emphasize that jihad is primarily about self-discipline, charity, and peaceful efforts toward justice.

Eurovision Controversy: Baby Lasagna & Jihad – Conclusion

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has admitted to covertly arming jihadist gangs in Gaza linked to Islamic State, while simultaneously stirring up the catastrophes across the Middle East, it’s difficult to speculate who would have the motive for creating a subliminal marketing conundrum that could aim at spreading radical propaganda or tension through Eurovision Song Contest.

36,000 people watched a politically charged flicker on a publicly funded screen, and nobody’s owning it up

Sure, it might have been just an artistic-social experiment on the border of forbidden. Maybe a cryptic gesture by JODI hacktivists, Baby Lasagna himself, or an anonymous graphics operator involved in visuals of Eurovision’s greatest public viewing controversy?

What is Baby Lasagna’s actual position on Israel’s occupation of Palestine anyway? Back in August 2024, after comparing Ireland’s Bambie Thug (an artist who was very vocal on their pro-Palestinian stance) to a “foaming rabid dog”, the Croatian Eurovision representative issued a statement: “I condemn the actions of Israel’s government. I bow my head to Palestine and its victims. I keep them in my prayers every night I go to sleep. Likewise, I will truly give my best to help those wounded by this horrific tragedy.” Are subliminal flashes a part of such efforts?

Or are we looking at a security breach – an act of malicious infiltration in a mass public event, where someone managed to compromise the digital visuals with embedded subliminal messages, sought to spread extreme ideologies, or extreme fear? Islamic State? Israel?

Was it an elaborate provocation that hoped to attract viral attention, or test reaction time from authorities, in a country where supporting terrorist groups – even through propaganda – can result in up to 10 years in prison?

When I asked who created the cube visuals for Arena Plus, Eurovision’s communication team responded curtly: “Arena Plus was organized by the City of Basel.”

The City of Basel’s Arena Plus media liaison went deaf to my repeated requests for information. So we’ll just have to hold Florian Sidjanski, the head of the Arena Plus project, responsible for both the act and the silence about it.

After Krešimir Šustić, Baby Lasagna’s spokesperson, ignored Pipeaway’s inquiries, we still await the singer’s statement, too.

Whether it was art, activism, or just someone’s idea of a dark joke; whether radical propaganda, anti-radical propaganda, or propaganda about propaganda – one fact remains: 36,000 people watched a politically charged flicker on a publicly funded screen and, for now, nobody’s owning up.

Want to read the follow-up to this story? Baby Lasagna's videos were first taken down from Swiss YouTube, Basel City spoke about the Arena Plus incident, then the National Cyber Security Centre denied its role in the content removal, and finally Basel City passed the buck to the neighboring canton of Baselland. 

What do you think about this Eurovision controversy? Did subliminal messages in Baby Lasagna’s performance make you think?
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The post Eurovision Controversy Continues: Baby Lasagna Atop Subliminal Jihad-Funding Messages? appeared first on Pipeaway.

Once a year, the city of Basel swaps its lab coats and precision watches for lightsabers, horns, and an alarming number of Super Marios. Wizards ride trams. Stormtroopers line up for coffee. Princess Peach shares posing tips with a Sith Lord. This isn’t a glitch in the Matrix – it’s Fantasy Basel, the Swiss Comic Con. If you’re looking for the largest cosplay gathering in Europe, you’ve found your kingdom!

Fantasy Basel 2025 pulled in 97,000 visitors, cementing its status as Switzerland’s largest pop culture festival

Basel goes full superhero every May. The vast halls of Messe Basel and the usually buttoned-up streets of this Swiss city overflow with elves, anime icons, movie villains, and alien bounty hunters. While the fandom event hosts everything from gaming expos to celebrity panels, it’s the cosplay scene that truly steals the spotlight (and the Instagram grid).

In 2025, Fantasy Basel (affectionately known as FaBa) pulled in 97,000 visitors, cementing its status as Switzerland‘s largest pop culture festival.

Thousands of these guests descend in full costume glory, bringing game, movie, and comic characters to our realm.

Whether you’re a seasoned cosplayer storming the con like a Mandalorian on a mission, or a first-timer with shaky cat ears, wondering what on Earth (or Middle-Earth) you’re walking into, you can be sure that this is a place where costumes start conversations.

Let’s suit up for Fantasy Basel, Switzerland’s favorite cosplay carnival!

What is Fantasy Basel?

Fantasy Basel is Switzerland’s ultimate multiverse meetup – an annual mega-convention where pop culture, cosplay, and pure geek joy collide under one roof. Held every spring in the exhibition halls of Messe Basel, it’s the country’s largest gathering dedicated to everything fantastical: film, TV, comics, gaming, science fiction, anime, art, and technology.

The brainchild of Martin Schorno from Zurich-based organization FantasyCon AG, Fantasy Basel was launched in May of 2015. Except for the pandemic 2020, the event continued to be an annual mecca for everyone from international jedis to local hobbits. To the unusual number of Baslers walking barefoot in their town, even out of the festival context: the pun was intended.

Back in its baby-dragon days, the first Fantasy Basel covered 15,000 square meters and drew in 20,000 visitors. Nowadays, the festival spreads over 100,000 square meters, and Fantasy Basel attendance numbers are five times higher than at its beginning. Apparently, Switzerland was just waiting for a reason to dress up as a Wookie in public.

Wanna see cosplay characters in action? Watch our Fantasy Basel video on YouTube!

 

What to Expect at the Swiss Comic Con

There’s plenty to explore at Fantasy Basel, from an entire zone dedicated to “Star Wars”, via K-pop dance-offs, to dozens of tattoo studios offering permanent event memorabilia. It can feel like an overwhelming buffet of fandoms.

Among the aisles full of art, tech, and nostalgia, these are Fantasy Basel highlights!

Fantasy Basel Cosplay Paradise

Cosplayers are the heartbeat of Comic Con Switzerland. From lovingly handmade armor to elaborate anime wings that challenge the laws of physics, the creativity on display is nothing short of wizardry.

While you’ll spot cosplayers posing all around Messeplatz, the main point of congregation for costumed visitors is Fantasy Basel Cosplay Village.

This vibrant zone is where cosplayers showcase their creativity, engage in workshops, and participate in panels on everything from costume and prop making to performance technique.

Passionate fans can meet international cosplay stars at their booths, but also get a taste of their fame via photographs provided by pro cosplay photographers like eosAndy.

If a seam on your costume tears up, or your armor needs a quick glue fix, there’s even a Cosplay Repair Station that will come to your rescue.

Fantasy Basel Cosplay Contest is worth sticking around for – think less “party store Batman” and more “museum-grade Witcher”. At least 80% of the costume has to be self-made (70%, if you’re a total cosplay newbie), but besides the craftsmanship, judges also evaluate the one-minute performance.

For these daily competitions, contestants have to pre-register, normally a couple of weeks before the event.

Fantasy Basel Cosplay Contest winners walk away with cash prizes, vouchers, high-tech goodies, con tickets, or even a guest booth and travel package for next year.

Not a cosplayer? No problem. This is one of the friendliest fan gatherings around. Spectators are encouraged, photos are welcome (always ask!), and you may very well leave planning your next year’s debut as a genderbent Totoro.

Fantasy Basel is held at the same place that hosted Eurovision Village just a couple of weeks earlier.

Fantasy Basel stars

From actors and voice artists to writers and manga illustrators, Fantasy Basel brings in top-tier celebrity guests. The festival line-ups have included stars from “Game of Thrones”, “Star Wars”, “Stranger Things”, “Fantastic Beasts”, and beyond.

Just on Fantasy Basel 2025, you could meet and greet George Blagden (Athelstan in “Vikings”), Graham McTavish (Dwalin in “The Hobbit”), Lucy Feng (Lega Fossang in “Rise of Skywalker”), Vanessa Rubio (Carmen Diaz in “Cobra Kai”), Coldmirror (one of the most popular German YouTubers), etc.

Besides hearing them talk in the Q&A panels, where they share behind-the-scenes stories, respond to fan theories, and occasionally drop surprises, you could also collect their autographs, take a selfie, or leave home with a dedicated voice message.

Autograph prices range CHF 23-25, photographs are available for CHF 30-40, voice messages skyrocket to CHF 50, while selfies are the most affordable – CHF 14-25.

Content creators at Fantasy Basel give out their signature selfies and selfless signatures for free.

Fantasy Basel Gaming & Tech Wonderland

Whether you’re Team PC, console loyalist, or tabletop games addict, Fantasy Basel’s gaming zone is your jam.

Try out new Nintendo releases, dominate in Fortnite, or get emotionally defeated by an eight-year-old at Mario Kart.

You can challenge your best friend to a Warhammer duel, rekindle your love for pinball and retro arcades, or test cutting-edge VR gear that makes you forget you’re still technically in Basel.

E-sports fans can join Fantasy Basel tournaments, while tabletop geeks look forward to numerous RPGs, board games, and trading card battles (from Magic: The Gathering to Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh!).

Artist Alley & Fantasy Basel Merch

This is where your wallet goes to die (happily).

At Fantasy Basel Artist Alley, you can witness live drawing, or even commission original artwork from independent creators. Browse through unique manga dioramas and crocheted dragons, or look for one-of-a-kind clothing, kawaii headpieces, and gothic jewelry.

You can also opt for collectibles galore at the Merchandise Market. Whether you are a fan of “Harry Potter”, “Jurassic Park”, “One Piece”, or “Squid Game”, at Fantasy Basel, you’ll find something to add to your figurine collection. So, definitely bring a bag.

No, bring two.

What makes cosplay at Fantasy Basel so special?

Fantasy Basel is massive. With thousands of visitors arriving in full regalia, this isn’t just a comic con. It’s a catwalk for capes, a runway for robes, and a red carpet for anyone who’s ever asked: “What if I dressed like Kratos for three days straight?”

In these three days of May, Basel transforms into the cosplay capital of Europe. Dressing up doesn’t just stop at the venue doors. Cosplayers flood the trams, spill into surrounding streets, and turn the plaza outside Messe Basel into a real-life multiverse mashup.

Here’s why the Swiss Comic Con is a cosplay paradise.

The craftsmanship is next level

Fantasy Basel isn’t about buying a costume online and calling it a day (though that’s welcome too). It’s about spending months building battle gear, styling wigs, and perfecting poses. Whether it’s foam-smithing or 3D printing, you’ll see artistry that practically rivals museum pieces.

“I spent 7-8 months crocheting this costume”, a Swiss version of Lucifer Morningstar told me, proudly strutting her ringmaster-style look across the square, tagging along with the rest of the “Hazbin Hotel” hellish cast.

Spending months to perfect a single look is exceptional, and yet it is the norm at this festival that stimulates creativity from head to toe. Or in Lucifer’s case, from hat to tail.

At Fantasy Basel, you’ll see it all: hand-stitched kimonos, foam-forged “Final Fantasy” armors, and wigs that look like they require their own insurance policy.

Whether built from cardboard or commissioned from a pro, the love and labor behind these costumes are evident in every seam.

Everyone’s Invited

Fantasy Basel isn’t just for elite builders. Whether you’re debuting a handcrafted masterpiece or grabbing a wizard hat last minute, you’re part of the show.

The con’s atmosphere is famously inclusive; nobody checks your skill level. As long as you came with love for the character, you belong.

It doesn’t matter if you’re rocking body paint, a tinfoil hat, or just admiration for others. The atmosphere is welcoming and supportive.

It’s not uncommon to see:

• Experienced cosplayers fixing someone else’s props
• Strangers forming spontaneous dance troupes
• Superman and Wolverine entering a duel during a selfie

Would Wolverine’s healing factor and adamantium claws give him an edge over Superman’s invulnerability? While it’s fun imagining who would win a Fantasy Basel crossover clash between Marvel and DC superheroes, universes-apart characters don’t always mix.

I made a faux-pas assumption when I proposed a photo to a group of four friends, and then wondered aloud why the fourth stood aside.

“Well, we are from different universes”, Nozomi Tojo told me.

This character has an all-knowing vibe even in “Love Live!”, an anime series where she’s the most mischievous of the school idols.

So it was, naturally, unnatural for her to share the same frame with an unlikely high school manga trio: Momo Ayase, Okarun, and Turbo Granny. They might all be from Japan, but “Dandadan” is still light years away.

At Fantasy Basel, colliding fandom galaxies require an expert astronomer. Fortunately, nobody seems seriously offended by not being recognized as a star.

A photographer’s dream

Fantasy Basel cosplayers don’t just wear outfits. They become the characters. Expect signature poses, dramatic stares, and even the occasional TikTok dance challenge.

Photographers, both amateur and pro, roam the grounds like NPCs with cameras, with numberless moments to document.

With natural light and hundreds of wildly creative costumes, the open plaza at Fantasy Basel becomes a de facto cosplay stage, one to witness free of charge.

Whether a full-geared pro or a smartphone-armed tourist, capturing a perfect shot is an opportunity, not anyone’s entitlement.

Cosplayers love being asked for a photo and are more than happy to pose. But you should not assume that a cosplayer’s politeness grants you unlimited time. That’s not fair towards the model, nor to fellow photographers.

Here’s an example: One photographer spent ages shooting a local Superman. Even after they were done, and the superhero started walking away, the photographer kept chatting the poor guy up, in what looked to me like an abuse of someone’s politeness.

After patiently waiting, I jumped in, apologizing for interrupting, and asked Superman: “Sorry, wiil I be able to take your photo, too?”

Before Superman could reply “yes” or “no”, the photographer exclaimed “Wait for a minute!” and continued his monologue. Lol, what?

Cosplayers are not public property. If you’re photographing someone, take a look around. Are you creating a queue? Is your model ready to move on? Don’t monopolize their time, expect them to review your shots, or fish out a phone from under layers of armor just to jot down your Instagram. The cosplayer is the central figure here, and you should be the one adapting. Not the other way around.

Tip: Instead of abducting cosplayers for a photo, ask which way they’re headed and walk with them. Get your photo quickly, at the convenient location – for them.

Tips for Fantasy Basel visitors

Here’s how to visit Fantasy Basel enjoyably and respectfully:

1. Wear comfortable shoes.

You’ll walk. A lot. Fantasy Basel is xxl in size, and your feet will thank you or kill you by mid-afternoon.

2. Hydrate and snack smart.

Watching cosplay is an endurance sport; be kind to yourself! Everyone’s allowed to bring in one non-alcoholic drink up to 0.75 L. Outside food is permitted only for visitors with babies or allergies. For everyone else, food stalls await.

3. Ask first.

Don’t take photos without consent. It’s common courtesy.

4. Don’t touch costumes.

Wings, wigs, and props are delicate and took someone forever to make. Admire with your eyes, not your hands.

5. Compliment the craft.

“You look amazing!” is the universal cosplay currency. Give generously.

6. Show curiosity.

Many cosplayers love to talk about how they made things. You might learn something about 3D printing or LED wiring.

7. Watch for props.

That five-foot sword has a five-foot turning radius. Respect the space. It’s a costume, not a bumper car.

NEED-TO-KNOW INFO FOR FANTASY BASEL 2026

Fantasy Basel dates in 2026: May 14-16

Fantasy Basel 2026 starts on Thursday, which is Ascension Day, and finishes on Saturday. The opening and the closing days are the most popular because working folks have more available time for hobbies and travel. But the middle day (Friday) is the cheapest for attending families.

Fantasy Basel location: Messe Basel

The address of Messe Basel, Fantasy Basel's venue, is Messeplatz 10.

Opening times: 10 am – 7 pm

While Fantasy Basel's opening hours officially start at 10 am, most programming (talks, panels, workshops) begins at noon. If you want to avoid crowds, arrive after 11. Unless you're hunting some rare collectibles!

Fantasy Basel ticket price: CHF 50 (+ service fees)

Fantasy Basel tickets go on sale months in advance, normally in autumn preceding the festival.

While the official partner for FaBa's online tickets is Ticketcorner, day tickets and afternoon tickets (entry from 3 pm onwards) can be bought on site.

Early birds that buy the Fantasy Basel Festival Pass, can use it for all three days. That will allow entry via a separate line.

Festival Pass Diamond allows entry even before general admission (at 9:30 am), as well as adds some festival souvenirs to your goodie bag.

Children below the age of 9 can enter for free, and young visitors (9-15 years) get a Fantasy Basel discount. Advance tickets for youth cost CHF 27, while at the box office they'll charge CHF 32. Friday is Fantasy Basel Family Day, when youth tickets cost CHF 22 (CHF 17 in pre-sale).

If you're a German-speaking Swiss adult, you can become a Fantasy Basel volunteer, and swap festival assistance for a 3-day ticket for yourself and a fellow fanatic, plus merch, food and drink vouchers. Not a bad deal for helping keep the multiverse in order!

Fantasy Basel schedule:

For the full Fantasy Basel program timetable and floor plan, consult the official page of the event.

Getting to Fantasy Basel

Fantasy Basel takes place at Messe Basel, right in the heart of the city. The venue is just a tram ride away from the main station and easily accessible from France or Germany. Crossing borders dressed as a furry is half the fun.

• Fly into EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg (BSL/MLH/EAP). From there, hop on bus 50 for a direct 20-minute ride to Basel SBB train station.
• Train into Basel SBB station, Switzerland’s busiest border station. There are direct connections from Zurich, Bern, Geneva, Milan, and even Paris.
• Tram it to Messe Basel. Hop on tram number 1, 2, 6, 14, or 15 to Messeplatz. Basel trams are fast, frequent, and adorable.
• Follow the jedis. Welcome to the con life!

Pick your Fantasy Basel hotel

Need a place to recharge your mana? These top hotels near the Fantasy Basel venue offer comfort, convenience, and a quick commute to the con floor:

Basel Marriott Hotel – Just across the street, Marriott provides modern rooms, a full gym and spa, and the elegant Heritage Basel restaurant. Check out this hotel on your preferred platform: Booking, Agoda, Trip, or Expedia.

Hyperion Hotel Basel – If you enjoy tall buildings, Hyperion is just steps away from Messe Basel and comes with panoramic city views. To relax after the event, visit their sauna. Check out this hotel on your preferred platform: Booking, Agoda, Trip, or Expedia.

Pullman Basel Europe – Chic and stylish, Pullman features a tranquil garden and an on-site restaurant and bar, which makes it a great place to decompress post-cosplay. Check out this hotel on your preferred platform: Booking, Agoda, Trip, or Expedia.

Bloom Boutique Hotel  & Lounge Basel – Smaller in size but big on charm, Bloom offers personalized service, cozy rooms, and a warm lounge bar that gets rave reviews. Check out this hotel on your preferred platform: Booking, Agoda, or Expedia.

If you love the space saga, you will adore these Star Wars-themed hotels!

Fantasy Basel, the Swiss Comic Con – Conclusion

Fantasy Basel is a celebration of art, imagination, shared obsessions, and unapologetic nerdiness. It’s where you can fangirl over a lightsaber duel, stumble upon your new favorite indie graphic novel, and watch your kid high-five a fully-armored Gundam. All in the same afternoon.

It’s literally a fantastic place to go to – whether you’re here for the cosplay, celebrity photo ops, or just want to spend a weekend in a parallel universe that somehow includes Pikachu, Gandalf, AND Pennywise.

Fantasy Basel offers a rewarding front-row seat to one of the most creative and colorful fan spectacles in Europe

Families come to Fantasy Basel to cosplay together. Friends coordinate elaborate group ensembles. Even first-timers get swept up in the joy of it all. The result? A living fan-art gallery, and you’re walking right through it.

From hand-sewn Sailor Moon outfits to LED-lit Iron Man suits, the sheer diversity of characters and craftsmanship on display at Fantasy Basel is quite astonishing. In a world increasingly divided, cosplay is a joyful, inclusive explosion of identity and fandom.

Even if you don’t attend a single panel or chase autographs, you’ll still get your fill of magic. Just showing up near the venue offers a rewarding front-row seat to one of the most creative and colorful fan spectacles in Europe.

So, dust off your camera, bring curiosity if you don’t have a cape, and embrace the madness. You know what they say: resistance is futile.

Until you dream up your character, find costume inspiration in these Fantasy Basel photos!
 

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you click on them and make a purchase, Pipeaway may make a small commission, at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting our work!

The author of most photographs in this article is Ivan Kralj.
The exceptions are the first six in-article photographs, where the credit goes to Fantasy Basel, the Swiss Comic Con (Darth Vader boy, Aloy, Marimo, Graham McTavish, fair interior, cosplayers window shopping).

The post Fantasy Basel, The Swiss Comic Con: Europe’s Largest Cosplay Gathering in Pictures appeared first on Pipeaway.

What if we gave each song a canvas twin? Eurovision provided acts, Kunstmuseum gave us centuries of mood, metaphor, and abstract nudes

Available to visitors since 1671, this grandiose Museum of Art displays a wide range of works, from Renaissance masters to modern and contemporary art. Basel Kunstmuseum exhibitions regularly feature impressionists and post-impressionists such as Vincent Van Gogh, cubists such as Pablo Picasso, or expressionists like Oskar Kokoschka. Kunstmuseum in Basel also loves to shine light on overlooked revolutionaries, like the current retrospective on Italian-French sculptor Medardo Rosso.

With Eurovision fans, often prioritizing glitter and spectacle, storming Basel in feather boas and flag capes, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a culture clash waiting to happen. High art vs. high camp. Exhibitions vs. exhibitionism. Two hardly connected worlds, right?

But what if we gave each song a canvas twin? Eurovision provided acts, Kunstmuseum gave us centuries of mood, metaphor, and abstract nudes. What do we get if we put them together?

From Käthe Kollwitz’s grief-stricken mothers to Penck’s fire-stick men, I matched this year’s performances with Kunstmuseum Basel artworks that felt just right. Some are perfect fits. Others are… interpretive. Much like Eurovision itself.

Check out these museum-music match-ups!

Baby Lasagna performed in the Basel Eurovision's pre-show. During the act, a series of visual glitches appeared, some referencing web art pioneers, others distributing Islamic struggle messages. Is this the newest Eurovision controversy?

Eurovision meets Museums. Or does it?

When Basel City proposed a free press tour of the cutting-edge Vitra Design Museum and the surrounding architecture campus, I was the only journalist (among hundreds!) who showed up. With a question mark above my head: did Eurovision fans not care for art beyond their bubble?

A few days later, a guided tour of the Kunstmuseum, one of the best museums in Basel, attracted a dozen media colleagues, restoring hope that centuries of art could still provide meaning.

After an hour of exploring the highlights of the Kunstmuseum Basel collection in the media group, I decided to linger and roam the place on my own.

With Eurovision goggles on, I tried to determine whether centuries-old Kunstmuseum Basel artworks could speak to today’s Eurovision crowd.

My visit turned into an exciting curatorial game. Eurovision is alive and well among Kunstmuseum Basel masterpieces. You just have to know where to look.

Where to stay near Kunstmuseum Basel?

Located just 200 meters from the Kunstmuseum Basel, Nomad Design & Lifestyle Hotel offers a modern and urban atmosphere. Housed in a classic 1950s building, the hotel features individually furnished rooms, a lively restaurant, fitness center, and sauna. Guests benefit from amenities like free Wi-Fi, complimentary bicycles, and a BaselCard for free public transport. There’s even a Library Club. Book this hotel through your preferred platform: Booking, Agoda, Trip, and Expedia.

Another hotel providing convenient access to the Kunstmuseum Basel, some 500 meters away, is Motel One Basel, in the heart of Basel’s Old Town. This budget-friendly design hotel offers modern rooms, a 24-hour front desk, and a stylish bar. Guests appreciate its central location, close to major sights and public transportation hubs. Book this hotel through your preferred platform: Booking, Agoda, Trip, and Expedia.

What to see in Kunstmuseum Basel

Kunstmuseum Basel shop

Every good museum visit should either begin or end at the gift shop. Preferably both.

At the Kunstmuseum Basel shop, my eye was immediately drawn to a shelf of linen tea towels – the signature creations of Glasgow-based visual artist and cheeky contrarian David Shrigley. Made by Third Drawer Down, these products can function both as posters and as, well, towels.

The illustrator rose to fame by poking fun at the pretensions of art-world seriousness dictated by schools. One of his towels simply reads “Be nice”, softened by a rainbow.

It brought to mind an oddly relevant moment from this year’s Eurovision. When the contest’s Media Handbook asked journalists to “be respectful” and not damage anyone’s image, some cried censorship. Managing Director Martin Green dismissed the interpretation that this goes against the freedom of the press, and translated their request as: “Be kind.” He would’ve probably loved to dry his washed hands with D. Shrig towels.

Over in the Kunstmuseum Neubau (the 2016 extension of Kunstmuseum Basel), another gift shop offers more merchandise gems. One tote bag declared: “I have been to hell and back. And let me tell you, it was wonderful.”

Wait, didn’t the verses go “I, I went to hell and back, to find myself on track”?

The bags were not quoting Nemo, a non-binary Eurovision winner, but Louise Bourgeois. The French-American artist also dealt with themes of sexuality, trauma, and fear of rejection. And, for her, sculpting was a form of exorcism, a way to discharge emotions through art.

Finding Nemo at Kunstmuseum Basel

Our guided tour through the highlights of the Kunstmuseum Basel artworks began before a chilling oil-and-tempera painting – “The Dead Christ in the Tomb” (1521-1522). German artist Hans Holbein the Younger (whose works formed the base of the Kunstmuseum’s collection through the Amerbach Cabinet) painted Christ’s lifeless body in a horizontal format, with such an unsettling realism that devout viewers might instinctively clutch their rosaries.

Christ’s hand, frozen in decomposition, appears to extend a middle finger – whether toward the heavens or humanity is open to interpretation. The macabre artwork even appeared in Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot”, questioning the power of religion over nature. As Prince Myshkin says in the novel: “A man could even lose his faith from that painting!”

But my Eurovision-senses began to tingle just next door. In a quieter corner of Renaissance grandeur, hung the “Portrait of Jakob Meyer zum Pheil of Basel” (1511). Attributed to an Upper Rhine master from Hans Baldung Grien’s circle, the painting showed a man from a noble family of Basel cloth merchants, the youngest son of Nikolaus Meyer zum Pheil, a 15^th-century Mulhouse mayor.

Now, some might argue that Nemo’s “The Code” owes more to the “Diva Dance” in “The Fifth Element” than to anything painted before the electricity. Even their Eurovision interval act “Unexplainable” continued to explore the same sci-fi universe and interdimensional vocals, with the Leeloo-style orange wig, of course.

But as I squinted in front of the Renaissance portrait of the prominent patrician Mr Jakob, I couldn’t help but reflect that, if Nemo did travel through time, they might not have gone forward, to the 23^rd century, but backward, to the 16^th.

Staging the Eurovision scene

If you watched Basel Eurovision, you remember the centerpiece of St. Jakobshalle was a showstopper stage with a mountain-inspired design. Following the idea of Florian Wieder (his ninth stage design for Eurovision), a giant LED screen showed alpine peaks pulsating in pink, red, and light blue colors.

Naturally, when I stumbled upon the “Amselfluh” (1922) in one of Kunstmuseum Basel’s corridors, I couldn’t unsee it. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s oil on canvas portrayed a vivid mountainous landscape in vibrant colors that saturated the intense scene with a sense of dramatic movement, in a similar way that digital Eurovision hearts did to its stage mountains.

In the center of the painting, a lone human figure blows a horn, anchoring us in the surreal panorama.

Then it hit me: the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest was not just opened on a stage with a similar color palette, but the main music act of the opening was Lochus Alphorn Quartett, a group that summons the spirits of the Alps with their traditional wooden wind instruments.

Just like Wieder, Kirchner was also German, but one whose work Nazis labeled as “degenerate”. Despite many of his works being destroyed, the co-founder of Die Brücke remains remembered as one of the most influential figures of Expressionism.

View to Infinity (Ferdinand Hodler) & Five Bathers (Paul Cézanne)

Climb the grand staircase of Kunstmuseum Basel and you’re rewarded with a view that’s – quite literally – infinite. The large-scale painting was initially created for Kunsthaus Zürich (1913-1916). However, the monumental dimensions of “View to Infinity” (9 x 4.5 meters) wouldn’t fit the original destination, so Swiss painter Ferdinand Hodler had to make a new version for Zurich. Basel graciously hosted the big one.

The painting features five women standing before a curved horizon in flowing blue robes, gazing into the distance. It shows the human contemplation of the universe, searching for meaning through meditation. The cosmic calm they channel feels worlds away from Eurovision. Or is it?

Tautumeitas, Latvia’s Eurovision entry, created probably the most transcendental experience during the entire competition. The Baltic queens of ancestral chant polyphony turned the stage into a ritual site, inviting us into a sonic trance of layered harmonies and cultural heritage pride. Their “Bur Man Laimi” performance felt like a spiritual séance wrapped in folk couture, which, in retrospect, could easily hang next to Hodler’s mystics-in-robes.

Swiss art historian Oskar Bätschmann once compared “View to Infinity” to Paul Cézanne’s “Large Bathers”. Exactly in front of Cézanne’s oil on canvas “Five Bathers” (1885-1887), from the same series that explores human figures in a landscape, did I think of Latvia’s Eurovision act again.

In Post-Impressionist style, five nude women blend into nature without precise details in their faces and bodies. The artist ditched realism in favor of abstraction, marking a crucial turning point in art history that questioned the very nature of painting.

Similarly, the mesmerizing performance of “Bur Man Laimi”, with hypnotic rhythm and earthy tones that remind of Cézanne’s Bathers, enchanted the audience by avoiding individual portraiture of the singers, and focusing on the harmony and feminine mystique they brought as a collective.

Latvia landed 13^th, right in the middle of the scoreboard. Not quite infinity, but far from zero.

The Two Brothers (Pablo Picasso)

One of the most iconic Kunstmuseum Basel artworks is Picasso’s “The Two Brothers” (1906). This oil on canvas captured two nude boys, the older one carrying the younger on his back.

Picasso painted this piece during his stay in the village of Gósol, on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees, where earthy Catalan influences softened his brush. He rendered the two figures in gentle contours and muted reds.

“The Two Brothers” was one of the two paintings (“Seated Harlequin” being the other) whose owners, faced with financial difficulties, decided to sell them in the 1960s.

Refusing to lose the loaned artworks, Basel taxpayers voted to save them in the 1967 referendum (yes, for real!), and fork out 6 million Swiss francs. The citizens had to contribute the rest; they went out to the streets, organized now-legendary Bettlerfest (Beggar’s Festival), and raised an additional 2.4 million francs with performances, selling goods, and shaking donation cans. Touched by the Baslers’ passionate fight, Picasso gifted the Kunstmuseum Basel four more artworks.

The younger, flame-haired brother in the saved painting from the artist’s Rose Period (phase when he swapped blue melancholy for warm tones, tender friendships, and a hint of circus optimism) is a spit image of Belgium’s Eurovision entrant: Red Sebastian.

The rouge-tinted and vocally impressive Seppe Herreman (Red Sebastian’s civilian alias) lit up the stage with “Strobe Lights”, but sadly didn’t make it past the Semi-Final – the Eurovision equivalent of failing a public referendum.

Woman with Hat Seated in an Armchair (Pablo Picasso)

Another of Picasso’s artworks housed in the Kunstmuseum Basel is “Woman with Hat Seated in an Armchair” (1941-1942). The portrait with fragmented, angular forms, blending Cubism and Expressionism, is believed to represent Dora Maar, Picasso’s lover and a frequent subject in his paintings during the dark days of World War II.

Equally elegant, in an introspective pose, and with the interplay of light and shadow, a pop artist from Picasso’s homeland started her dynamic performance at the Swiss Eurovision. Melodía Ruiz Gutiérrez, or more condensed – Melody, brought “Esa Diva” to the Basel stage, an act bursting with Spanish flair and theatrical energy.

Melody’s woman-empowering show might have started like a pose, but unlike Picasso’s muse, she refused to remain in a frame. The singer tore through the curtain, delivered a quick-change act, from black to silver, and a bold choreography that only supported her vocal power. This diva paints herself!

While Melody didn’t climb high on the scoreboard (24th, with 37 points), her charismatic stage performance left an imprint – an act of rebellion against stillness, against reduction. Much like Picasso’s postwar portraits, Esa Diva was fragmented, expressive, raw. And impossible to ignore.

Marguerite Gachet at the Piano (Vincent Van Gogh)

“Marguerite Gachet at the Piano” (1890) is another portrait of a seated woman quietly hanging at the Kunstmuseum Basel. Here, a lady in a rose-colored dress is caught mid-melody, fingers on a dark violet piano, against a green wall with orange spots. The characteristic expressive brushwork on this double-square oil on canvas is unmistakable – it is one of the last artworks of the famous Vincent Van Gogh.

Marguerite was a 21-year-old daughter of Dr. Paul Gachet, the physician who cared for Dutch artist in Auvers-sur-Oise, a village where Van Gogh spent his final months. The young woman in the painting appears distant and detached, concentrated on the piano, and radiating a certain melancholy.

Also featured in a semi-profile view, with a white-painted face and emitting a similar introverted gloominess, Italy’s Lucio Corsi opened his Eurovision performance of “Volevo essere un duro” (“I Wanted to Be Tough”) while playing the keys on the piano. Or, well, pretending to play them.  ­

In 1999, instrumental music was expelled from the contest when Israel decided to avoid spending money on an orchestra. Other broadcasters followed suit, establishing a backing track as a golden standard of Eurovision, where instruments were reduced to props.

Lucio broke the fourth wall of Eurovision convention by integrating a mouth organ (harmonica) into the voice microphone, and thus entered history as the first ESC act in this millennium to play an instrument live.

The song landed a respectable fifth place in the Grand Final.

Harlequin (Walter Kurt Wiemken)

In a Kunstmuseum Basel room echoing with circus motifs, a vibrantly strange “Harlequin” (1925) stood out. This is an artwork by a Basel-born painter, Walter Kurt Wiemken, known for his contributions to Expressionism, Impressionism, and Surrealism.

The painting of a trickster with hair parting blended influences of all three while portraying a classical figure that embodies theatricality and disguise. The harlequin appeared fragmented, with a brushwork that bordered on the childlike, reminiscent of Paul Klee’s sketch-like universe.

With signature dance moves that looked as if someone had prompted AI to generate a video from an image (and used “Harlequin” as that image, of course), Tommy Cash represented Estonia at Eurovision 2025 with an absurdist satirical song “Espresso Macchiato”.

Tomas Tammemets’s eccentric alter ego, with exaggerated coffee-fueled footwork, supported a modern-day harlequin act, a disorienting chaos fit of Wiemken’s Espressionism universe. They both reflected on identity and disguise, serving a protest against conservative trends in the arts.

Europe seemed to love it. Tommy Cash finished third in the Grand Final – proof that, at Eurovision, there’s always room for something disjointed.

Girl With Long Hair (Adolf Dietrich)

“Girl With Long Hair” (1930) is an important piece in the artistic legacy of Adolf Dietrich, a self-taught Swiss painter associated with Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) – a German art reaction against Expressionism.

This naïve art painting features a young girl gazing forward, her long hair flowing, rendered with soft but precise brushstrokes. The composition celebrates stillness and simplicity, capturing a subject’s presence without excessive embellishment.

In a very similar fashion and quiet intensity, Zoë Më took the Eurovision stage for Switzerland. Filmed in one uninterrupted shot, the performance of her introspective ballad “Voyage”, with cinematic setup and soft lighting, evoked an atmosphere of solitude and intimacy, supporting the singer’s delicate tone.

One doesn’t have to fulfill Eurovision’s maximum quota of six people on stage to leave an impression. Sometimes, less is indeed more.

And yet, Eurovision is often a party, not a gallery. The juries appreciated Zoë’s restraint, enough to push her into 10th place overall. But televoters? Not a single point. Maybe minimalism doesn’t text.

Girl on the Balcony (Georg Schrimpf) & War Picture (Maly Blumer)

Among the leading figures of Weimar Germany’s Neue Sachlichkeit art movement was Georg Schrimpf. As he belonged to the “right wing”, he managed to float under the radar of Nazi censors who interpreted his art as a tolerable form of German Romanticism. But his socialist past caught up with him; his professorship was revoked, and his works were branded “degenerate”, removed from museums and public life.

“Girl on the Balcony” (1927), gazing into the distance, seemingly lost in thought, fits Schrimpf’s serene, dreamlike realism. As if caught between the private interior world and the vast openness beyond, this quiet contemplation on the balcony represents introspection and detachment, where emotional excess is rejected.

When Yuval Raphael took to the Eurovision stage for Israel with “New Day Will Rise”, she too stood on a balcony – albeit a much shinier one. Perched on a glittering chandelier structure, the staging was an artistic nod to the balcony where Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, posed during the 1897 Zionist Congress in Basel. Yuval didn’t just stage the foundation of the Zionist movement in crystal stones at Eurovision; she even went to the original balcony to recreate the photograph that started it all.

To understand the full gravity of Israel’s performance, there is a painting in the Kunstmuseum’s fundus that perhaps connects better with the decision to bring a survivor of the Nova music festival massacre as a Zionist mascot to Basel, delivering an overtly symbolic, politically charged message.

Maly Blumer-Marcus, a Basel native who initially painted still lifes, later explored human experiences and darker, conflict-related subjects. Her “War Picture” or Kriegsbild (1930-1975) is a deeply haunting portrayal of human agony. A monstrous figure of Death, with an oppressive, predatory aura, spreads its wings over an unidentifiable mass of victims, conveying a wartime trauma and a sense of hopelessness.

While Blumer likely depicted displacement and despair in the Second World War (just as her 1939 painting “Refugees on the Run”), the landscape suffocated with smoke in the “War Picture” is eerily universal. One might easily see a silhouette of Gaza as Dresden, with a deadly bomber flying over it.

So perhaps Israel’s 2025 Eurovision act wasn’t just another girl on a balcony, “seemingly lost in thought”. Perhaps it was closer to Blumer’s vision: a stage cloaked in politics, asking a continent to look – or look away.

“New Day Will Rise” rose to the second place at Eurovision, thanks to televotes.

Still wondering why Israel is in Eurovision? Read on!

The Shipwrecked (Heinrich Altherr)

Just a few steps from “War Picture” – as if Kunstmuseum Basel had anticipated a Eurovision-style split screen – hangs another emotionally charged canvas: “The Shipwrecked” (1928) by Swiss painter Heinrich Altherr.

This Expressionist oil on canvas plunges the viewer into a scene of human struggle and existential symbolism, but also resilience.

The central figure, tied to the boat by a rope, waves a piece of cloth, as if seeing saviors on the horizon, beyond the painting’s edge. The style is dark, the shadows are deep, and the atmosphere is intense.

Austria sent JJ (full name Johannes Pietsch) to Eurovision, a countertenor displaying operatic vocals fused with electronic beats, in a parallel emotional voyage. “Wasted Love” was staged in stark black-and-white with digital waves crashing around him.  The cinematic staging mirrored Altherr’s stormy drama – a man adrift in emotional wreckage, still longing for connection.

The shipwrecked JJ, drowning in the ocean of his romantic feelings, found a lifeline in 436 points (258 from the jury, 178 from the televotes), sealing Austria’s third Eurovision victory.

Saint Gregory (Matthias Stomer)

Matthias Stomer, a Dutch master shaped by the chiaroscuro of Caravaggio, spent much of his artistic life under the patronage of the Italian Church, bringing saints and bible stories to the canvas.

“Saint Gregory” (17^th century) is a Baroque portrayal of one of the four great Latin Church Fathers, depicted with a vivid expression and gesture, and surrounded by books. Typical of Stomer’s Caravaggesque style, the painting uses a strong contrast between light and shadow, dramatizing it with the presence of a dove, the Holy Spirit incarnate.

Four centuries later, light once again became scripture on stage, as Ukraine’s Ziferblat brought “Bird of Pray” to the Eurovision spotlight.

The bird symbol, as well as the use of light magic (literally a light-transfer trick between fingertips), appeared central in their performance.

In a powerful staging, a truss of lights hovered over the stage as if it were a bird’s wings, a visual emphasizing migration and survival, the country’s burning struggles.

Ziferblat flew to eighth place at Eurovision.

Portraits of the Zurich Standard-Bearer Jacob Schwytzer and his wife Elsbeth Lochmann (Tobias Stimmer)

Painted in 1564 by Tobias Stimmer, portraits of the Zurich Standard-Bearer Jacob Schwytzer and his wife Elsbeth Lochmann are a fine example of Swiss Renaissance portraiture, exposing the growing self-awareness and status of the Zurich bourgeoisie at the time.

The Zurich banner bearer and granary caretaker stands in a commanding pose, in rich attire that highlights his social standing, pride, and masculine authority. His wife’s portrait is a complementary one, presenting her in elegant clothing, reinforcing the couple’s prestige and wealth.

The decision to become immortal through larger-than-life full-length portraits was bursting with self-confidence, not an ordinary thing in the period.

Fast forward 461 years. Shkodra Elektronike, Albania’s duo that blends traditional music with modern electronic beats, exists in a vastly different artistic context. Still, their Eurovision performance of “Zjerm” mirrored a similar bold authority, care for identity, and a color dichotomy of red and black, representing male and female energies that fit together, yet barely touch, like those twin portraits.

Albania tied with Ukraine for 8th place in the Grand Final, but in terms of commanding presence and aesthetic conviction, they easily stood their own ground – much like the bourgeoisie of Zurich once did, centuries ago.

Warrior with Halberd (Ferdinand Hodler) & The Queen of Sheba’s Visit to Solomon (Jan Davidsz. Remeeus)

“Warrior with Halberd” (1898) is another work of Bern-born painter Ferdinand Hodler in Kunstmuseum Basel’s possession. Depicting a standing warrior in a heroic, sculptural posture, holding a traditional medieval pole weapon, this oil on canvas is an example of Hodler’s series embodying national pride.

With a similar commanding presence, memorable costume(s), and well, a moustache, Australia’s Eurovision warrior Go-Jo (real name Marty Zambotto) tried to win the crowds with his “Milkshake Man” song. The difference is that down under, warriors eventually take off their clothes, and then suggest using different kinds of weapons, those that splatter milk instead of blood. Was that milk, hm?

“The Queen of Sheba’s Visit to Solomon” (early 17^th century), painted by Jan Davidsz. Remeeus, also resonates with Go-Jo’s act. A tale of diplomacy, according to a legend, ends up as a romantic relationship that starts centuries of the Solomonic dynasty ruling Ethiopia (learn more about the Aksumite Empire’s myths here).

Simply put, all roads lead to a giant high-speed blender, a materialized thirst trap, where you’ll bow because he “can tell you want a taste of the milkshake man”.

Despite his charismatic magnetism and energetic performance, Go-Jo narrowly missed a spot in Eurovision’s Grand Final, finishing 11^th in his Semi.

Portrait of Erich Lederer (Egon Schiele) & The Bath at Leuk (Hans Bock the Elder)

Egon Schiele’s “Portrait of Erich Lederer” (1912-1913) is a masterclass in Viennese Expressionist portraiture. This oil on canvas is presented in a long vertical format, highlighting the subject’s stature.

Erich, the son of August Lederer, a major patron of Gustav Klimt, who introduced Schiele to the family, has piercing eyes, gazing at the observer, with a hand confidently resting on his hip. Contrasted by his formal attire is Erich’s aristocratic, pale skin. He could almost be Scandinavian.

And he is perfectly dressed for the sauna, at least if we ask the fully buttoned-up KAJ, Sweden’s representatives on the 2025 Eurovision. Their entry, “Bara Bada Bastu” (translating loosely as “Just Take a Sauna”) was performed as a wild, sauna-themed spectacle, which they executed in very formal attire.

“The Bath at Leuk” (1597), possibly inspired by Leukerbad, a famous Swiss thermal spa, and one of the most famous wild baths of the period, is Kunstmuseum’s art piece celebrating a popular pastime that combines hygiene, relaxation, socializing, and entertainment.

German painter Hans Bock the Elder showcased men and women bathing, gossiping, and even flirting together. In a place bustling with naked bathers, just like in “Bara Bada Bastu”, three fully clothed (we could even say – overdressed) men observe the scene.

The first Finnish act to represent Sweden managed to secure a steamy fourth place at Eurovision.

The Bath at Leuk (Hans Bock the Elder) – again

Let’s not towel off “The Bath at Leuk” just yet. After all, if Swedes were singing about a sauna, these were Finnish Swedes singing about – Finnish sauna.

Finland proper sent Erika Vikman to Eurovision, a pop provocateur who brought a different kind of heat.

Her entry “Ich komme” (“I’m Coming”) leaned hard into sexual innuendo – so hard, in fact, that Eurovision’s official site politely translated the lyric “grab my ass” into a more palatable “hold on to me tight”. Costume modifications were also requested from Erika: apparently, there are limits to how much thigh Europe can handle at 9 pm.

Similarly, “The Bath at Leuk” with its nude interacting visitors was deemed too controversial when Kunstmuseum acquired it in 1872. Subtle erotic allusions to what’s really going on in public baths were too much for puritan Baslers. The painting was initially gathering dust in the conservator’s office.

Art is speaking about true life, and sometimes it’s about seeking sensual pleasures. Sooner or later, it comes in front of consumers.

Erika came in 11^th place, but true Eurovision fans know that some acts, like certain paintings, are too bold to be measured by placement alone.

Ulysses Threatening Circe (Jacob Jordaens)

Finland wasn’t the only country to ruffle Eurovision’s moral feathers this year. Malta’s Miriana Conte was forced to rename her provocative track from “Serving Kant” to just “Serving”, so its explicit-sounding pronunciation wouldn’t upset sensitive ears.

But where were we in Kunstmuseum Basel? Ah, yes, “Ulysses Threatening Circe” (1630-1635)…

We have a dramatic Baroque painting from Flemish artist Jacob Jordaens, capturing a critical moment from Homer’s “Odyssey”.  Ulysses (Odysseus) stands above Circe with a raised sword, commanding her to reverse the spell on his men. It is Circe’s magic that turned them into pigs, visible in the bottom corner.

Much like the mythical sorceress, Miriana Conte complied with the rules to stay in the game. She trimmed her lyrics that provoked otherwise blameless individuals, making them grunt and oink. Hopefully, they didn’t watch that sensual choreography of the final performance.

In a struggle between power and magic, pure force might have won, but this didn’t stop the audience from filling in the gap in the song’s magic potion formula, loud and clear. Hear how it sounds when you don’t mute your audience – Arena Plus attendees serving “Kant” in this YouTube short!

Malta’s result in Eurovision’s Grand Final was 17^th place, but Miriana remained undefeated. Diva not down!

Malta is sinking. Check out the things to do in Malta while you can!

The Death of Pietro Aretino (Anselm Feuerbach)

“The Death of Pietro Aretino” (1854) is the kind of painting that screams: “What the hell just happened?” The Italian Renaissance poet, known for his biting wit and scandalous verse, is shown collapsing backward at a feast – a dramatic exit!

German painter Anselm Feuerbach had grand hopes that the Prince Regent would buy the painting for the Karlsruhe collection, but the Acquisition Commission bluntly rejected it. “The regent is just a child in art matters”, disappointed Feuerbach wrote.

On Eurovision, Princ (not Regent, real name Stefan Zdravković) represented Serbia with “Mila”, a ballad mourning an unrequited love. The lyrics invoked the imagery of the last supper and a descent into the arms of Hades, as the protagonist was left with only memories for Mila, who “brought life back from the edge”.

In a dramatic Eurovision staging, the long-haired Princ echoed Aretino’s fragile posture, taking a theatrical nosedive. The dancers dragged him across the floor, which highlighted his surrender to personal tragedy. It also made the cleaning crew’s job easier, with one less performer to mop up after.

Despite the impassioned performance, Princ didn’t manage to impress Eurovision’s own Acquisition Commission in the Semi-Final. “We gave our all, I left my heart on stage, and I hope you felt it”, Princ commented.

Play of the Nereides (Arnold Böcklin)

“Play of the Nereides” (1886) is another oil on canvas from Kunstmuseum’s unofficial “What the hell just happened?” collection.

The Swiss symbolist Arnold Böcklin, fittingly Basel-born, produced a dreamlike aquatic scene, populating it with nymphs, mythological sea creatures. The Nereides twist and twirl in the waves as an image of freedom, vitality, and untamed beauty.

The girl group Remember Monday (UK) brought a similarly vibrant whirlpool of energy to the Eurovision stage.

Their genre-bending “What the Hell Just Happened?” delivered cascading harmonies, fluid, synchronized, and dynamic like Böcklin’s nymphs.

Equally playful and with expressive gestures, Lauren Byrne, Holly-Anne Hull and Charlotte Steele might have made us all remember Monday, but also helped us forget Saturday. In the Grand Final of Eurovision, the public awarded them a neat nul points. Fortunately, the jury threw them a lifebuoy: 88 points, enough to keep them from sinking to the bottom of the scoreboard. They finished 19th.

Children Making Music Overheard by a Nymph (Anselm Feuerbach)

Another of Feuerbach’s classicist masterpieces, “Children Making Music Overheard by a Nymph” (1864), depicts youngsters playing a string instrument, unaware of the presence of a curious nymph lurking beyond the trees.

It’s a pastoral daydream – myth meets musical innocence – wrapped up in Feuerbach’s romanticized realism and fascination with classical art.

Representing Feurbach’s homeland, Germany, a young sibling duo, Abor & Tynna, brought a fresh, urban sound to Eurovision with their infectiously rhythmic song “Baller”. It’s still about being watched while making music – this time by Europe and half the internet instead of a nymph.

They also paid homage to their classical upbringing, coming up with an act that fused modern electro-pop with cello riffs.

“Ich ballalalalalalaler Löcher in die Nacht” (“I shoot holes into the night”) might not make complete grammatical sense, but Europe found it weirdly hypnotic. Much like Feuerbach’s nymph, they couldn’t help but peek in.

Germany’s shot landed in a solid 15^th place in the Grand Final.

Death and the Woman (Hans Baldung Grien) & Untitled (There is no more unfortunate being under the sun than a fetishist who longs for a woman’s slipper and has to make do with a whole woman, K.K.: F) (Rosemarie Trockel)

“Death and the Woman” (1520-1525) shows a decaying skeletal figure firmly gripping a terrified woman from behind. Once it arrives, death is inevitable, and clinging.

The theme of mortality was very common in Hans Baldung Grien’s oeuvre. This German Renaissance artist frequently depicted a grotesque personification of death next to young women, warning against the transience of life and worldly pleasures.

“How Much Time Do We Have Left”, Klemen Slakonja asked exactly five centuries later. His wife, actress Mojca Fatur, was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. The question eventually became a song about shared vulnerability, representing Slovenia at the 69^th Eurovision Song Contest in Basel.

Klemen’s touching performance had a minimalist yet powerful staging. In one moment, he embraced his personal emotional collapse literally, and sang suspended upside down for thirty seconds. Perhaps a nod to life turned on its head, or to the art of holding on when the world flips.

As I descended to the underground passage in order to get to the Kunstmuseum Basel extension (Neubau), a hanging seal suddenly felt familiar. The unnamed work by German visual artist Rosemarie Trockel actually had quite a long title that quoted Austrian satirist Karl Kraus: “Untitled (There is no more unfortunate being under the sun than a fetishist who longs for a woman’s slipper and has to make do with a whole woman, K.K.:F)” (1991).

Suspended by its hind legs on a chain, as if it’s dragged aboard a ship, the seal’s inverted posture referenced brutal hunting practices. The bronze animal wore a synthetic-hair collar, possibly symbolizing consumerism, the human desire to possess everything that surrounds us.

From Baldung’s bony embrace to Trockel’s brutal suspension, from a deathly grip to a life upside-down – these works remind us that art confronts.

Klemen’s song, with just 23 points, was sadly left hanging in the Semi-Final.

Portrait of a Woman: Saint Catherine (Lucas Cranach the Elder)

Lucas Cranach the Elder, a leading artist of the German Renaissance, created several portraits of Saint Catherine of Siena, an Italian mystic, influential theologian, ascetic, and stigmata. Cranach emphasized her devotion, wisdom, and martyrdom, aligning with Reformation-era ideals.

A notable example is a half-length “Portrait of a Woman: Saint Katherine” (1508), depicting a young woman in a prayer, dressed in black attire with a traditional Dutch bonnet. Her expression is serene, highlighted by soft contours and delicate shading.

I’m not sure what was the thing that Nina Žižić wore while performing her Eurovision entry for Montenegro. After a walk through Kunstmuseum Basel, the best match I could find was this Dutch cap worn by Saint Catherine.

With “Dobrodošli” (“Welcome”), Nina did appear like a martyr; she even had a bruise on her forearm, probably a bit more discreet than Catherine’s wounds of Christ. Blindfolded, Nina could’ve also potentially been a goddess of justice, encircled by an aura of a gigantic white pillow.

If not a martyr herself, Nina at least sang to them: “Put a smile on your face, endure it all, it’ll pass.”

Montenegro had to endure just 12 points from the televotes, thus finishing last in Semi-Final 2.

Phallic Shoe (Yayoi Kusama)

Besides recognizable repetitive polka dots, Yayoi Kusama’s artistic world is covered in phallic shapes. What started as a personal fear of sex continued as an artistic obsession with phalluses.

Encased in a glass box like a possibly cursed Cinderella relic, “Phallic Shoe” (1966) is a soft sculpture, basically a high-heeled shoe filled with phallic forms (as precise as it gets when the author suffers from phallophobia, and just possibly – potatophilia). Japanese artist aimed to make this object a symbol of male fantasies and female anxieties.

Topics of fashion and societal expectations collided in the Eurovision performance of Justyna Steczkowska for Poland. Her song “Gaja”, celebrating the goddess of Earth and possibly Westeros, unfolded through a very dynamic dance choreography. Three out of four performers were men, and yet all of them wore extremely high heels.

Coming from the possibly least LGBTQ-friendly EU country (ranking just slightly better – or less worse – than Romania), Justyna’s artistic proposition managed to confuse as probably the gayest-looking act of Eurovision 2025 (that’s gayest as in gay, not Gaja).

Maybe that’s the combo of fear and fascination Kusama talked about, a thin, permeable line that separates homophobia from homo-desire.

Skilled in stilettos, Poland ran to the 16^th place in Eurovision’s Grand Final.

Film Lumière n˚765, 1 – Danse serpentine, II (Anonymous)

Next, I entered a room where an early cinematic work by Louis and Auguste Lumière was projected on the wall. “Film Lumière n˚765, 1 – Danse serpentine, II” (1897-1899) captures a dance style popularized by Loïe Fuller, an American Symbolist performer known for her flowing fabric movements and innovative stage lighting.

The dancer twirled her voluminous semi-transparent robes, creating hypnotic, fluid shapes that constantly changed colors. Of course, we cannot witness the entirety of the craze the Butterfly-woman caused in Paris music halls, simply because of the limits of the first cinematograph, which recorded moving images in black and white. But in this version, Lumière brothers hand-colored the film frame by frame, letting us imagine the kaleidoscopic euphoria the novelty performance unleashed on Belle Époque audiences.

More than a century later, Denmark’s Sissal also aimed at delivering a hypnotic theatrical experience at Eurovision 2025 with her song “Hallucination”.

There were no color changes in the Danish dreamlike blue universe. But Sissal did use a wind machine to whip her long translucent train into a fluid sculpture of air, as well as surreal effects provided by her moon-booted dancers executing gravity-defying lean moves.

Though some considered Denmark a dark horse for a surprise victory, Sissal was eventually wind-swept to 23^rd place on the scoreboard.

Motorboat (Gerhard Richter)

At first glance, “Motorboat” (1965) appears to be a blurry black-and-white photograph, until you realize it’s an oil painting. Part of the New European Painting art movement, this figurative painting is, however, based on a real photograph, originally used in an ad for Kodak Instamatic camera.

German visual artist Gerhard Richter is known for blending realism with abstraction by using a photo-painting technique. He deliberately softened the image of a group of people enjoying a ride on the boat. This way, he created a sense of movement and fleeting moments, as well as stimulated an exploration of memory and perception.

On the Eurovision stage, an equally joyful ride was delivered by Iceland’s sibling captains called VÆB. With “RÓA”, brothers Matthías Davíð and Hálfdán Helgi Matthíasson rowed their pop-electronic vessel through a nautical fantasy.

A cheerful group of friends cruised through an uplifting sea adventure that combined the action on stage with visual effects added for at-home audiences.

While they easily navigated through the Semi-Final (finishing 6^th), VÆB’s boat sank to the 25^th (second-to-last) place in the Grand Final.

Large Mold Picture (Dieter Roth)

Dieter Roth was a Swiss artist who didn’t just think outside the box – he fermented it. Famous for using organic materials like chocolate, yogurt, and bread, Roth embraced decomposition and decay as part of the creative process.

His “Large Mold Picture” (1969), exhibited at Kunstmuseum Basel, is exactly what it sounds like: a layered sandwich of moldy matter sealed between glass panels. It’s art that evolves with fungal blooms, reminding us of the ephemeral nature of nature. Technically, it is a moldy mold of mold.

Similarly unconventional Marko Bošnjak, who represented Croatia at Eurovision 2025, also brought something that wasn’t easy to digest. His song “Poison Cake” was a haunting, metaphor-heavy tale of vengeance served dark and cold.

You don’t hear songwriters framing revenge as their central theme that often. Let’s just say that poisoning someone as a method of retaliation is a demon typically left unsung.

While Roth’s work was sometimes dismissed as messy, and many struggled to see its artistic value, Bošnjak also polarized the audience, struggling to fully connect with Eurovision juries and the viewers. Despite delivering a passionate performance, Croatia didn’t qualify for the Eurovision final.

If Marko could learn something from Dieter, the lesson would be that bold and boundary-pushing art pieces ripen with time. Or rot. Sometimes, it’s all the same.

Not all Croatian cakes are there to poison you. Take a look at the recipe for Rab Island's delicacy - Rapska torta!

Aetas aurea (Medardo Rosso)

“Aetas aurea” (1886), Latin for “The Golden Age”, is a wax sculpture that portrays a mother with a son in an intimate moment.

Italian sculptor Medardo Rosso, who moved to Paris, where he befriended and influenced Auguste Rodin, the father of modern sculpture, used his own wife Giuditta Pozzi and son Francesco as models for this double portrait.

The mother is kissing the boy, their faces in a tender embrace, melting into each other. It’s an image of maternal love and unity, a utopia of perfect happiness, as the title suggests.

For this “Aetas Aurea”, Rosso chose an unusual medium – wax. Unlike traditional marble or bronze, this material reinforces the idea of fragility and the fleeting nature of the moment.

Louane from France knows all about the ever-shifting sands of time slipping through one’s fingers. For “Maman”, a heartfelt ballad dedicated to her late mother, the French Eurovision act brought a real sandstorm to the stage, adding to the intimate story of grief, healing, and motherhood.

Unlike the Polish act, Louane performed her song barefoot, in a simple black dress, putting an accent on her raw, powerful vocals.

France placed 7^th in the Grand Final.

Torso of the Walking Man (Auguste Rodin)

Auguste Rodin wasn’t just Medardo Rosso’s friend or rival; he admired the work of the innovative Italian sculptor. It’s fitting, then, that the special exhibition “The Invention of Modern Sculpture” in Kunstmuseum’s new building brings the two together. Alongside Rosso’s “Portrait of Henri Rouart” (1890) and Cézanne’s “Five Bathers”, Rodin’s “Torso” (1878-1879) is shown.

This torso from the study for Saint John the Baptist, also known as “Torso of the Walking Man”, is one of Rodin’s best-known compositions. Over two decades, he would work on transforming this rough-surface, fragmented bronze sculpture, detached from its arms and head (it was Saint John after all!). It is raw, muscular, and gloriously incomplete, embodying movement more powerfully than most whole statues ever could.

Swiss Eurovision had its own walking man with a missing upper wardrobe – PARG a.k.a. Pargev Vardanian from Armenia. Shirtless, just smeared with some black paint, brimming with primal energy instead of adhering to classical perfection, the singer marched across a giant treadmill during his performance of “Survivor”. It’s the closest a human could get to being static like a sculpture, yet in motion, like Rodin’s sculpture.

“I’m a survivor, stay aliver, do or die in my prime”, our moving torso sang, emphasizing themes of struggle. Struggle with English included.

Armenia walked (and walked and walked) to the 20^th place in the Grand Final.

Fire (A. R. Penck)

A. R. Penck (born Ralf Winkler), a leading voice of German Neo-Expressionism, forged a peculiar visual language that recalls primitive art normally seen in caves.
“Fire” (1967-1968), oil on canvas, brings his signature Standart figures (simplified, stick-like forms) that symbolize universal human struggles.

Fire is often present in Penck’s work, as an element of destruction, transformation, and renewal – a reflection of his experiences growing up in divided Germany, during the Cold War.

Norway’s Kyle Alessandro started his fire on the Eurovision stage with “Lighter”, a flammable song that combines pop, baroque, and folk sensibilities. Dressed in metallic armor, symbolizing his strength and resilience, the artist explored the themes of self-reliance and overcoming adversities, following the advice received from his cancer-diagnosed mother: “Never lose your light!”

Despite the energetic stage presence that received a warm reception at the venue (those flame projectors help!), Kyle finally ranked 18^th at Basel Eurovision.

Die Mütter (Käthe Kollwitz)

“Die Mütter” (1921-1922) or “The Mothers” is Käthe Kollwitz’s powerful black-and-white woodcut from her “Krieg” (“War”) series. Seven woodcuts were created in response to the catastrophic impact of World War I, and as a resistance act against Germany’s culture of military sacrifice.

The artist’s piece doesn’t just reflect her deep pacifist convictions, but also a personal grief. She lost her younger son, Peter, on a battlefield in Flanders, in the early months of the war.

The composition forms a protective wall of mothers, women united in shielding their children in a tight defensive circle, refusing to give them up to future wars. This activist work condemns militarism and the glorification of sacrifice.

Now, Claude Kiambe, who represented the Netherlands at Eurovision, arrived in the country as a refugee, fleeing from the political unrest in his homeland, the Democratic Republic of Congo.

His emotionally soaked song “C’est la vie” was an ode to his mother, a woman who shielded her children to secure them a future of better possibilities. Life is unpredictable, but one should embrace it, his mother’s advice said.

The juries embraced Claude’s message, but televoters were more reserved, giving him just 42 points. He landed in 12^th place overall. Well, c’est la vie.

KUNSTMUSEUM BASEL INFO

Kunstmuseum Basel address

Hauptbau – the main building: St. Alban-Graben 16
Neubau - the new building: St. Alban-Graben 20
Gegenwart - the contemporary art building: St. Alban-Rheinweg 60

Parking near Kunstmuseum Basel

Kunstmuseum Basel has its own underground car park that can fit 350 vehicles. It’s located at Luftgässlein 4.

The basic price for the parking is CHF 3 per hour.

Opening hours

Monday: closed
Tuesday-Sunday: 10 am – 6 pm
Wednesday: 10 am – 8 pm

How long do you need for Kunstmuseum Basel?

A visit to the Kunstmuseum Basel typically takes 2 to 3 hours, depending on how deeply you want to explore its vast collection.

If you're an art enthusiast, you might want to spend half a day in museum’s three buildings, to fully appreciate the masterpieces spanning from the 15th century to contemporary art.

The historical collection is housed at the Hauptbau, special exhibitions and art from the collection after 1950 at the Neubau, while contemporary art from 1960s onwards can be found at the Gegenwart.

Kunstmuseum Basel ticket price

Adults 20 years and older: CHF 25
Students: CHF 12
Teenagers: CHF 12
Children: free entrance
With Basel Card: CHF 12.50

On working days, the last operating hour is happy hour at Kunstmuseum Basel. This means you can visit its main collection free of charge on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 5 to 6 pm, as well as on Wednesday from 7 to 8 pm.

Free entrance at Kunstmuseum Basel is also available every first Sunday of the month.

Want to save even more? Check out these free things to do in Basel!

Chasing Eurovision among the Kunstmuseum Basel artworks – Conclusion

Eurovision 2025 took over Basel for a week. But some of these performances had a longer-lasting potential. So we moved the contestants into the Kunstmuseum, the world’s oldest public art collection.

Not every act may pass the test of time. Some will fade into the fog of forgotten Grand Finals. Others might be debated for years.

Whether displayed on a museum wall or broadcast on Europe’s flashiest stage, art can be emotional, provocative, and occasionally misunderstood by the general public

From Kusama’s phallic heels to Rodin’s walking torso, from barefoot ballads to moon-booted hallucinations, each performance found its artistic twin among the museum’s paintings and sculptures.

These Eurovision-Kunstmuseum pairings might not be perfect soulmates. But there’s something to learn from connecting the dots in this cultural crossover: Whether displayed on a museum wall or broadcast on Europe’s flashiest stage, art can be emotional, provocative, and occasionally misunderstood by the general public.

One person’s ‘meh’ is another’s masterpiece. Sometimes, it takes centuries to validate the votes given to any artwork. So only time will tell whether this year’s Eurovision stories were worth framing.

Some acts missing? Explore Kunstmusem Basel artworks by yourself, and make your own perfect pairs!
Liked the article on Eurovision-museum match-ups? Pin it for later!

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The authors of all photographs are mentioned in image titles and Alt Text descriptions. In order of appearance, these are:

Ivan Kralj - photographs of all Kunstmuseum Basel artworks and museum's gift shop
Sarah Louise Bennett / EBU - Lucio Corsi, Tautumeitas, Red Sebastian, Shkodra Elektronike, KAJ (II), Miriana Conte, Nina Žižić, Sissal, VÆB, Kyle Alessandro
Alma Bengtsson / EBU - Eurovision alphorns, Yuval Raphael (I), Ziferblat, Go-Jo, KAJ (I), Erika Vikman, Princ, Remember Monday, Abor & Tynna, Klemen, Justyna Steczkowska, Marko Bošnjak, Louane, PARG, Claude
Corinne Cumming / EBU - Melody, Tommy Cash, Zoë Më, Yuval Raphael (II), JJ

The post Kunstmuseum Basel Artworks Matched With Eurovision Songs appeared first on Pipeaway.

Knowing where to find free or low-cost public viewing spots for Eurovision in Basel is priceless for any budget-conscious superfan

Fans are flying in from more than 80 countries – from Argentina to New Zealand, and even tutta l’Italia – but Switzerland, bless its mountains, isn’t exactly budget-friendly.

Even if there are many amazing free things to do in Basel, Basel Eurovision tickets are not on that list. The prices for attending the music event of the year range from CHF 70 to CHF 270 for the semis, all the way up to a glittering CHF 350 for the grand finale (that’s €373 or $425 for those converting with tears). Add flights, fondue, and fancy hotels, and your finances might hit a higher note than JJ in “Wasted Love”.

So, knowing where to find free or low-cost public viewing spots for Eurovision in Basel is more than useful – it’s priceless for any budget-conscious superfan.

Get your map out, grab a pen, and start marking down the must-visit Basel Eurovision locations!

In 2024, Eurovision has entered an era of United by Music controversies, the greatest one still being asked: Why is Israel in Eurovision? Click on the links to learn more.

Where to watch Eurovision in Basel?

Basel Eurovision main venue

Let’s start with the heart of the action: St. Jakobshalle, the official Eurovision 2025 venue in Basel. Located at St. Jakobs-Strasse 390 in Münchenstein, this arena is where the Eurovision magic will unfold live on stage. Locals affectionately call it Joggelihalle (Joggeli is a nickname for St. Jakob).

This multi-purpose arena will host not one, not two, but nine Eurovision shows available to the public, including dress rehearsals (aka preview shows) and the live televised spectacles.

First Semi-Final

Preview shows – Monday 12 May at 9 pm, and Tuesday 13 May at 3 pm
Live TV show – Tuesday 13 May at 9 pm

Second Semi-Final

Preview shows – Wednesday 14 May at 9 pm, and Thursday 15 May at 3 pm
Live TV show – Thursday 15 May at 9 pm

Grand Final

Preview shows – Friday 16 May at 9 pm, and Saturday 17 May at 1:30 pm
Live TV show – Saturday 17 May at 9 pm

How much time do we have left to buy the most wanted tickets in town? Erm, they’re gone. Well, don’t cry now, c’est la vie. The organizers still try to add a seat or two in the arena, but that borders on a miracle that would have to involve both Gaja’s divine intervention and some serious bur man laimi spells.

If you still hope to witness Basel Eurovision live, in front of its main stage, your best lifeline is fanSALE, the event’s official resale partner. It’s the only platform where legitimate ticket holders can resell their spots in the auditorium at face value.

ESC Basel public viewings

1. Arena Plus St. Jakob-Park

Located right next to the Eurovision’s central venue, the St. Jakob-Park football stadium will host the biggest public viewing event of the grand final on Saturday, May 17.

Before the grand final viewing starts on gigantic screens, the largest stadium in Switzerland will host a baller pre-spectacle featuring both Swiss and international Eurovision artists, kicking off at 7:30 pm.

The headliner of the evening is Marko Purišić, better known as Baby Lasagna, a Croatian runner-up on Eurovision 2024. The wildly addictive “Rim Tim Tagi Dim”, dedicated to all youngsters deslocado from their country in pursuit of a better life, racked up over 60 million Spotify streams. The song was a fan favorite of the ESC Malmö edition, so we can surely expect 36,000 stadium visitors executing the iconic elbow-dance in unison.

Also joining the lineup in Arena Plus is Belgium’s dance pop queen Kate Ryan, bringing her “Je T’adore” from ESC Athens 2006, along with her greatest dance hit covers, such as “Elle Elle L’a” and “Voyage Voyage” (not to be confused with faire un voyage voyage lyrics in this year’s Swiss ESC entry).

The 90-minute pre-show will include domestic artists as well: Basel-born Anna Rossinelli (ESC 2011, with “In Love for a While”), Luca Hänni (ESC 2019 with “She Got Me”), and DJ Antoine, Swiss king of club beats whose mega-successful international anthems “Ma Chérie” and “Welcome to St. Tropez” will take the energy through the roof, maybe even reaching Laika party in the sky.

Some tickets for the Grand Final Public Viewing Show at Arena Plus are still available here, ranging between CHF 45 and 128.

Baby Lasagna's performance at the Arena Plus Eurovision pre-show was marked with some controversial subliminal messages. Check out what your subconscious mind could read between the flashing screens!

2. Basel Eurovision Village

If Eurovision had a beating heart in the city, it would be the Eurovision Village at Messe Basel, an exhibition center located in the vibrant Kleinbasel district.

From May 10 to 17, Hall 1 is your go-to hub for free Eurovision events in Basel, including the public viewing of the semi-finals and the grand final. Eurovision Village opens at noon, and goes shh at midnight (max. at 2 am, on DJ nights), because everyone needs a beauty sleep!

On several stages, you can expect live concerts and DJ acts that will make you starry-eyed like asteromáta.

Besides former Swiss Eurovision artists (Remo Forrer, Luca Hänni, Timebelle, Sinplus, Anna Rossinelli), the continuous warm-up party includes appearances by Conchita Wurst (Austria’s 2014 winner with “Rise Like a Phoenix”), Michael Schulte (German representative at ESC 2018 with “You Let Me Walk Alone”), ABBA Gold Concert Show, and 90s survivor icons such as SNAP! (“Rhythm Is a Dancer”), Rednex (“Cotton Eye Joe”), and Twenty 4 Seven (“Slave to the Music”). Prepare to dance like nobody’s filming… even though someone definitely is.

The hosts of the program in the Eurovision Village will be Tanja Dankner (soul-jazz singer and vocal powerhouse), Odette Hella’Grand (the biggest Swiss drag queen, clocking in at two meters in heels), and Joël von Mutzenbecher (stand-up comedian).

The entry to the Eurovision Village is free.

Messe Basel will also host EuroClub, the official after-party of Eurovision, where fans will be able to meet delegations and artists. This is a camera-free zone, so expect total freedom, here and there, everywhere. EuroClub is a ticketed event, and the entrance costs between CHF 20 and 35, depending on the day.

If you want to meet Eurovision stars in a casual setting, maybe with a cup of espresso macchiato, head to EuroCafé, open daily from 4 pm.

3. Kulturkirche Paulus – the Culture Church

Welcome to St. Paul’s Church! Before you ask what the hell just happened, and how did a Eurovision program end up under a church organ, you have to know that recent decades saw a declining congregation sizes in Switzerland, so around 250 churches went through a sort of a conversion therapy, becoming cultural venues, museums, libraries, and even private residences.

Located at Steinenring 20, Kulturkirche Paulus, erected in the early 20^th century, was originally an evangelical-reformed church. In 2021, it turned into a cultural venue, now hosting concerts, events, and community gatherings.

If you wonder what happens when you mix stained glass, soaring choirs, and Eurovision divas, this May, the Culture Church invites you to three vespers under its neo-Romanesque meets Jugendstil roof.

May 13

The evening begins at 5 pm, with a lineup of local choirs: Vocal Cords, Round Table (men’s choir) and Ensemble Singvoll (women’s choir) from the Basler Liedertafel 1852, and Basler Beizenchor with excerpts from the Beizivision Song Contest, a local spin on Eurovision. Even if you come in an outfit screaming Volevo Essere Un Duro, you’ll still melt like Mila to some of the songs. Once your ears are blessed, stick around for the Eurovision Semi-Final public viewing.

May 15

At 6 pm, before the live broadcast of the second Eurovision Semi-Final, Kulturkirche Paulus hosts Basel Madrigalists with the Classical Eurovision Song Contest. Who would have won douze points in earlier centuries – Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, or Schubert? This whimsical evening is hosted by the cabaret impersonator David Bröckelmann.

May 17

Starting at 4 pm, before the Eurovision Grand Final appears on the big screen, the church will echo with songs performed by the Wasgenring primary school children choir, children’s songsmith Balz Aliesch, Ensemble Cantalon, and Queer Choir Switzerland. Not only maman will be proud!

Entrance to Eurovision public screenings at Kulturkirche Paulus is free of charge.

4. Elisabethenkirche – the Disco Church

For a real party in a sacral institution, head to Offene Kirche Elisabethen (Open Church of St. Elisabeth) at Elisabethenstrasse 14.

Once traditional, this neo-gothic church became a post-denominational space in 1994, embracing every bird of pray, regardless of a person’s belief, background, or identity (including LGBTQ+). They’re even known for blessing pets, from dogs to rabbits.

Starting from May 10^th, Elisabethenkirche will transform into a Disco Church. And no, it’s not a hallucination. Every night from 6 pm, you can hit the church floor with your best esa diva dance moves. “Hits All Night Long” means a euphoric blend of dance anthems, DJ sets, and the occasional Eurovision banger at the altar.

On Eurovision nights, May 13, 15, and 17, the ESC public viewing in the holy house of disco kicks off at 8 pm.

In front of the church, the Swiss Square keeps the energy flowing from 11 am already, with food trucks (amen), bars (communion optional), karaoke (unleash your inner Käärijä), live concerts, day parties, and probably a few spontaneous voguing sessions.

Be your own lighter, feel the spark, and may the flames of zjerm fall upon your tribal dances!

The event is brought to you by Ü-Parties.ch, an organizer specialized in themed parties. Tickets are only available at the door.

5. Das Viertel – the Super-Gay Public Viewing

If your idea of Eurovision bliss involves drag queens, rooftop bites, and cocktails shaken harder than Milkshake Man’s van, then Das Viertel is calling your name, preferably in falsetto.

Located at Münchensteinerstrasse 81, the rooftop of this buzzing night club transforms into the unapologetically fabulous Super-Gay Eurovision Public Viewing, for both semi-finals and grand final Eurovision night.

This isn’t just a watch party; it’s a full-on queer communion under the stars, with an atmosphere that will steam up hotter than bara bada bastu sauna. Your tavo akys (‘your eyes,’ in Lithuanian) won’t know where to look: the drag queens, the disco lasers, or that person dressed as Verka Serduchka.

Milky Diamond and Klamydia Von Karma, Swiss drag icons with unforgettable names, will host the evenings.

Public viewings are free, but if you want to party even after the last points are dropped, stay for Europop and electro house tunes with Queen Moustache DJ Collective, Taylor Cruz, and Hortus Duplex. Get your tickets for CHF 35 (20 in pre-sale).

The organizers of Eurovision’s Super-Gay Public Viewing are Mannschaft, the LGBTQ+ media outlet, and Pink Cross, the national umbrella for gay rights and advocacy.

More Drag Queens Take the Mic

Looking into other options for drag-fueled Eurovision frenzy? Or even considering hitting the entire runway of alternative public viewings in one night, in your version of a Drag Race? To find the fiercest queens around, here’s where you’ll have to sashay your way:

Grand Casino Basel at Airport Hotel (Flughaffenstrasse 215) hosts a public viewing of both Semi-Finals and the Grand Final, with showtime karaoke. On May 13, expect high camp with Freiburg-based drag queen Dita Whip, while on May 15 and 17, the mic goes to “Switzerland’s sweetest drag queen”, Amélie Putain. The evenings start at 7:30 pm. Free entry.

KaBar (Kaserne, Klybeckstrasse 1b), a popular LGBTQIA+ venue, has its own royalty for the main night – Tara LaTrash, the drag persona of Luca Papini, who will DJ and comment through the evening. On the First Semi-Final night, just like every Tuesday for the last 40 years, KaBar transforms into a legendary ZischBar, and queer public viewing will be accompanied with karaoke, presented by Mischa and DJ Pussy Galore. On the Second Semi-Final, the venue prepares Pink Cross speedfriending with Gelateria Sound System in the background. Doors open at 5 pm, no charge.

Sudhaus (Werkraum Warteck, Burgweg 7) will organize the public viewing of Eurovision’s Grand Final. The moderator of the evening is Jeff van Phil, Swiss drag performer and boylesque icon. Doors for this sparkling soirée open at 7 pm, and a ticket costs CHF 20 (a glass of Prosecco included).

At Basso vegetarian restaurant/bar/club (Elsässerrheinweg 101), right by the Rhine, a team of international drag queens headlined by Ana Dolly will entertain you for the Grand Final public viewing. Count on spectacular performances, Eurovision video throwbacks, a pop quiz, and DJ sets. The night starts at 7 pm, and the party rolls on till 4 am. Tickets available for CHF 10.

6. KinoKoni

When it comes to watching the live broadcast of Eurovision in Basel, probably the comfiest seats of all (even sofa options available) can be found at KinoKoni, at Steinenvorstadt 36.

This boutique cinema, usually reserved for luxurious film experiences, will be screening all three Eurovision nights on its big screen.

All you need to do is get comfy in that plush armchair, enjoy your favorite acts with crystal-clear sound, and crunch on that popcorn in anticipation.

This cinematic Eurovision treat comes with free entry. Just show up, sit back, and let the drama unfold.

7. Markthalle Basel

Markthalle Basel, at Steinentorberg 20, with one of the largest domes in Europe, is not just a roof for the food supply, but a vibrant community with a welcoming atmosphere.

On semi-final and grand final nights, the living room of the Market Hall will host another Eurovision public viewing. If you fancy rooting for your favorite acts while enjoying drinks from the house bar or an uncomplicated dinner from global food stands at large communal tables, this is the place to go.

The entrance at Markthalle Basel is free, so say Ich komme early to secure the best view of the screen!

Alternative Food-Accompanied Public Viewings

Let’s be real: waiting for that one country to give your favorite act a “douze points” can be emotionally draining - and a little snack in front of the TV just won’t cut it. If you’d rather mix your ESC drama with a side of actual dinner, here are a few more Basel spots where public viewing comes plated and garnished:

Atlantis Basel (Klosterberg 13), a legendary fusion restaurant and a gathering spot of music lovers for eight decades, will livestream Eurovision in the background of a cozy dinner. Taste their tartars (beef, vegetable, Alpine salmon), dive into a burger, or their signature white Toblerone mousse. The host of the night is charismatic Nick Schulz. Free entry, starts at 8 pm.

Café Stoa at Sommercasino (Münchensteinerstrasse 1) delivers Eurovision public viewing on its colorful terrace with fine catering. Doors swing open at 5 pm, hot food and appetizers start sizzling from 6. Free entry.

The concert club Kuppel Basel (Nachtigallenwäldeli 9) is another cultural venue committed to Eurovision broadcasting. Besides your hungry ears, they’ll be feeding your mouth too – the neighboring Backstage Bistro will be offering smash burgers under their dome. Starts at 9 pm. Entry? Still free.

Altes Kraftwerk (Lehenmattstrasse 353) is a decommissioned power plant, now powering the Eurovision spirit.. Just a skip from the St. Jakobshalle, this ESC House of Fans delivers 80s and 90s vibes all week. On the live show nights, it hosts both public viewings and aftershow parties. The food lineup includes burgers, raclette, sausages, and falafel. Doors open at 4 pm, and entry is free.

8. Natural History Museum

The entrance to one of my favorite Basel museums is free during the entire ESC week. So why not use the opportunity to wander around the Natural History Museum‘s exhibition Wildlife Photographer of the Year? Among other taxidermied specimens displayed in the museum, these days you can even take a selfie with – a unicorn.

But for one night only, Thursday, May 15, the museum at Augustinergasse 2 invites you to the public viewing of Eurovision’s Second Semi-Final in their secluded courtyard.

From 6 pm, the After-Hours ESC Special will welcome you with DJs Flavah Nice and The Haze. There will even be a jukebox party in the smallest teledisco in the world!

Free admission.

9. Helvetia Campus

One never knows when a poison cake could mess up one’s plans. Helvetia, the Swiss insurance giant that ensures a new day will rise with less stress, saw a precious opportunity in sponsoring this year’s Eurovision.

In that light, they decided to open their new campus at St. Alban-Anlage 26 (Helvetia Versicherungen) to the ESC community and include it in the Eurovision party mile.

During the day, expect food trucks (serving everything from wurst to Thai), muted ESC dancing, and interviews with delegations conducted by the Wiwibloggs team. And then, in the evening, Helvetia’s garden becomes another venue for ESC public viewing.

The entry to Eurovision events at Helvetia is free.

Where in Europe is Basel?

Basel is located in the northwestern corner of the country, right at the border triangle where Switzerland, France, and Germany shake hands. Even Basel airport (EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg) has dual citizenship, half Swiss, half French.

Basel itself sits along the Rhine River, which made it a key European hub for trade, culture, and transportation (róa regattas included), as well as a cosmopolitan city with historical and cultural ties across Europe. Practically, a perfect place to host the Eurovision Song Contest 2025!

ESC Basel Public Viewing Locations – Conclusion

From the moment it welcomes you with dobrodošli on May 11, until it sends kiss kiss goodbye on May 17, Basel will be breathing Eurovision.

Even if you didn’t snag a ticket for the live shows at St. Jakobshalle, or any of the Eurovision public viewing events, worry not. Basel has open-air celebrations and spontaneous dance breaks around every corner!

Wherever you roam in Basel city center, you’ll stumble into Eurovision magic

Barfüsserplatz transforms into Eurovision Square with concerts and live performances. Steinenvorstadt gets its moment as Eurovision Street, while the stretch from Basel SBB to Badischer Bahnhof and along the Rhine promenade becomes Eurovision Boulevard, lined with installations, street shows, selfie stations, and spots to snack, sip, and sing along.

Wherever you roam in Basel city center, you’ll stumble into Eurovision magic. Just follow the vibrant Eurovision pink-blue hues (bathing everything from banners to trams), “Welcome home” signs (ESC Basel motto, just next to that permanent “United by Music”), or the love-spreading, gender-neutral Lumo (the official Basel Eurovision mascot with big bright eyes and untamed curly hair, de facto la poupée monte le son).

One minute you’ll be listening to choirs in Kulturkirche Paulus, the next you’ll get baptized by the strobe lights at the Disco Church. But forget the Basel Eurovision map!

When that longest turquoise carpet in Eurovision history rolls out at the Opening Ceremony on May 11, the whole of Basel will become a stage. The music will kick in, and everyone will run with u toward the loudest beat.

Whether you’ll be waving your flag in a stadium crowd, clinking cocktails with drag queens on a rooftop, dancing under a disco ball in a Gothic church, or nibbling dumplings under the dome at Markthalle – the points may come from the jury, but the party will always be with the people.

If you haven’t noticed, the titles of 37 songs competing at Eurovision 2025 have slid into this article like Easter eggs. If you cannot find them all, they are marked in bold italic.

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The post ESC Basel Public Viewing Locations: Where Can You Watch Eurovision in Basel? appeared first on Pipeaway.

Letters from politicians, petitions from artists and the general public, and even broadcasters’ calls for Israel to be disqualified from Eurovision, and still crickets

Just last week, 26 members of the European Parliament  from twelve countries – the list led by Matjaž Nemec and Irena Joveva from Slovenia – sent a strongly worded letter calling for Israel’s Eurovision entry to be disqualified.

“In light of over a year and a half of Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank, persistent human rights violations, and severe breaches of international law – including continued war crimes without accountability – we believe the EBU must act to uphold its mission and values, while also protecting the integrity of the competition”, MEPs stated.

The next day, RTVE, Spain’s public broadcaster and one of Eurovision’s top five funders, communicated concerns of Spanish civil society for the situation in Gaza. In polite Euro-speak, they asked the EBU to open “a space for reflection”, an internal debate on the participation of Israel in ESC.

These are just the latest voices questioning Israel’s participation in Eurovision.

Watch how Israeli delegation was "welcomed" in Basel in the newest Pipeaway Walks video!

Last month, over 10,000 people and 500 culture workers in Finland signed a petition urging national broadcaster YLE to push for Israel’s Eurovision ban due to the war in Gaza. A year ago, 1,300 Finnish musicians signed a similar call, while a Swedish petition advocating for Israel’s ban listed 1,000 artists. In Iceland, 500 musicians petitioned to pull out altogether rather than share a stage with Israel, while 450 queer artists demanded the same from Olly Alexander, then representative of Great Britain.

The first country to demand the EBU’s reaction without gloves was Slovenia. In December, RTV SLO officially requested Israel’s disqualification from Eurovision 2025. EBU’s response? According to available information – crickets.

After all the protests, petitions, and public pressure, why isn’t Israel banned from Eurovision?

UPDATE:

On April 22, Iceland's Foreign Minister Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir asked the country's public broadcaster RÚV to lobby for Israel's exclusion from Eurovision within the EBU, which was welcomed and acted upon. 

On May 6, members of the National Union of Journalists at RTÉ also called Ireland's broadcaster to urgently demand the suspension of Israel's participation at Eurovision. In response, RTÉ's director Kevin Bakhurst general asked EBU for a discussioon on Israel's inclusion in the song contest.  

Also on May 6, the pressure arrived from seventy-two former Eurovision contestants from 12 countries. They wrote to the EBU, condemning its "complicity with Israel's genocide" and "repeated refusal to take responsibility". The letter states that "by continuing to platform the representation of the Israeli state, the EBU is normalizing and whitewashing its crimes".

Among the signatories demanding the exclusion of Israel from Eurovision in this letter are Salvador Sobral (Portuguese winner, ESC 2017), Charlie McGettigan (Irish winner, ESC 1994),  Turkey's Hadise Açıkgöz, France's La Zarra, Iceland's Daði Freyr, UK's Mae Muller (herself Jewish), and many others.

"Silence is not an option", the artists say.

On May 8, 2024 ESC winner Nemo joined the call for Israel's exclusion from the Eurovision Song Contest. "I don't support the fact that Israel is part of Eurovision at the moment", they said in an interview with HuffPost UK. "Israel's actions are fundamentally at odds with the values that Eurovision claims to uphold - peace, unity, and respect for human rights."

Big Five, Small Talk

While it could silently archive the request of a small country like Slovenia in a drawer, EBU couldn’t ignore Spain, one of the Big Five countries, which, due to their financial contribution to the event, directly qualify for the ESC final. The very same day RTVE called for a forum for debate, EBU practically shut it down, with a statement of two sentences.

“We welcome RTVE confirming their commitment to the Eurovision Song Contest and appreciate there are concerns and deeply held views around the current conflict in the Middle East. All Members of the EBU are eligible to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest and we remain in constant contact with those participating this year, including RTVE, on all aspects of the Contest”, the corporate shrug said.

In other words (if these 61 were not clear enough), EBU dusted off its go-to line that Eurovision is a competition between member broadcasters, not countries (you can find the same argument in their response to MEPs). So as long as Israel broadcaster KAN is a member, EBU doesn’t plan to question their participation. If Spain tried to ring the alarm, EBU just put it on snooze.

Will it do anything to facilitate the debate? EBU plans to “remain in constant contact”, which can be translated only as: no changes.

In December 2025, EBU decided that Israel's future in Eurovision will not be put to a vote, making some countries walk out from the contest. How did Israel secure its new era of artwashing?

Eurovision dilemma: Israel vs. Russia

When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the EBU responded with a similar speed. By the next day, Russia was booted from Eurovision. No one was saying that Russian broadcasters RTR, Channel One and RDO had the eligibility of EBU members.

Even if the three Russian representatives withdrew from the membership soon after the Eurovision ban, no broadcaster sins were mentioned in the EBU statement. One could almost conclude that the Eurovision Song Contest was a competition of countries after all.

“The decision reflects concern that, in light of the unprecedented crisis in Ukraine, the inclusion of a Russian entry in this year’s Contest would bring the competition into disrepute”, EBU explained.

If the Russian invasion of Ukraine was an “unprecedented crisis”, that very decision established a precedent: political context can disqualify a country. Sorry, broadcaster. Sorry… country? Wait, which is it?

(Not) Dealing with Israel left boycott supporters confused. They posed a valid question on EBU’s consistency and double standards: Why is Russia banned from Eurovision, but not Israel? Is Eurovision’s moral compass spinning to the beat of strategic alliances?

EBU never explained why it treats Israel’s challenges to Eurovision’s reputation differently from Russia’s. The only difference was expressed in wording: the situation in Ukraine was named a ‘crisis’, the catastrophe in Palestine – a ‘conflict’. But surely that’s not enough to say that the calls for boycotting Israel are pointless.

Another possibly important aspect in the Eurovision why-Israel-not-Russia dilemma is that, in 2022, countries like Finland and Estonia were very vocal in threatening to leave the competition should Russia stay. Could it be that Eurovision banned Russia because other countries used their participation as real leverage?

In the meantime, the concrete vocabulary of action was replaced with expressions of concern and expressions of appreciation of concern, a practically meaningless diplomatic lingo that cannot yield results beyond just sending a general message that not all of Europe is indifferent.

Eurovision 2025 is seeing a growing trend of artists performing across borders. So why do we restrict showing their fluid identities via flags?

Why are there boycott calls against Israel?

The calls to boycott Israel’s participation in Eurovision gained momentum after Israel’s military response to the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023. Israel’s large-scale offensive led to a staggering number of civilian casualties, widespread destruction of infrastructure, and a humanitarian disaster in Gaza.

Hamas-led surprise attacks in southern Israel took 1,200 lives. Israel’s retaliation didn’t stop at self-defense; the death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 50,000, with the majority of victims being children and women.

By erasing entire families, bombing hospitals, schools, and even UN humanitarian shelters, using starvation as a weapon, the Israeli military offensive has all the characteristics of a war crime and crime against humanity.

While Eurovision insists on being an apolitical celebration of music and unity, critics argue that in the face of widespread suffering and destruction, participation in Eurovision is not a neutral act, but a political one. And silence then equals complicity.

On top of that, Israel’s entries are now regularly coming with political undertones in their lyrics. The days of Nadav’s “Golden Boy” (2015) or Netta’s “Toy” (2018) are long gone.

Eden Golan’s 2024 entry “Hurricane” was originally titled “October Rain” – widely interpreted as a direct reference to the Hamas attacks. It took the intervention of Israel’s President Isaac Herzog for KAN to accept the lyrics change as a strategic loss. For many critics, this makeover added fuel to the fire: not only is Israel being allowed to compete, but it’s also allegedly bending the rules to send a politically charged message, just cloaked well enough to pass.

Israel’s 2025 entry is “New Day Will Rise”, performed by Yuval Raphael, one of the 11 survivors of the Supernova Music Festival massacre in Re’im, the same October 7 attack. A harrowing destiny of surviving under dead bodies in a bomb shelter amplifies an angelic voice singing of hope.

While EBU prohibits politically charged messaging in Eurovision songs, Israel seems to have found the recipe to deliver a political narrative while abiding by the rules.

The boycott calls often recognize the practice as artwashing – using a high-profile cultural event to gloss over human rights violations, and to improve a country’s international image. LGBTQ+ organizations also called out Israel’s pinkwashing – exploiting the idea of a queer-friendly oasis in the Middle East as a rainbow-colored PR shield to distract from the oppression of Palestinians.

All in all, the Eurovision boycott calls are about visibility, accountability, and whether international cultural stages can exist in a vacuum while humanitarian disasters unfold just offstage.

Israel's music that goes viral on social media doesn't always correspond with the image the country tries to project at Eurovision. Who could represent Israel at 2026 Eurovision edition in Vienna?

Sound of silence

The Eurovision-Israel boycott debate reopens an old question: Can Eurovision remain apolitical in a deeply political world? EBU seems to believe silencing is an adequate method to tackle disputing voices.

The mute-mode toolbook includes:

Political statements ban

ESC’s Duty of Care guidebook instructs delegations to refrain from expressing political opinions during participation as it “protects the Contest’s integrity, helps avoid controversy, and ensures that the focus remains on the music”. Political statements could “harm the ESC’s reputation, create diplomatic tensions, and place unnecessary pressure on artists”.

Check out the controversial questions/answers on ESC press conferences in 2019 and 2024!

Flag control

The ESC’s updated Code of Conduct (as of December) specifies that only “official flags representing participating countries are welcome”. This means that last year’s controversial ban on the EU flag in the arena seems to remain. The Code of Conduct doesn’t mention flags representing LGBTQ+ communities either.

Speaking of Israel, it was exactly in Tel Aviv, during the 2019 Eurovision, when flags sparked controversy. Madonna’s dancers wore Israeli and Palestinian flags on their backs without approval of the organisers, and Iceland’s Hatari raised Palestinian flags during the televoting, earning a €5,000 fine and a permanent place in ESC protest history.

See the Icelandic punk band’s flag protest that didn’t make a cut in the official DVD recording of Eurovision!

Live broadcast editing

Controlling the contracted artists is one thing. Controlling thousands of fired-up fans? That’s trickier. Smuggled protest signs and banned flags can slip past security. But there’s a Plan B for such activism being seen on TV: live camera cuts.

Audio changes are, however, a sophisticated manipulation. When Polina Gagarina performed for Russia in Vienna (2015) and Eden Golan sang for Israel in Malmö (2024), both were met with intense arena booing. But the folks watching from their couches at home, thanks to anti-booing technology, heard… fake applause.

This is how Eden Golan’s act really sounded in Malmö Arena!

Cracking the Code of Conduct

To prevent artists and other stakeholders from disrespectful engagement, the Eurovision’s new Code of Conduct specifies: “Disruptive behaviour is to be avoided at all times, particularly during live performances and ongoing production activities, to ensure a positive and enjoyable experience for all participants and the audience.”

The appendix of the code especially addresses interruption of events as “yelling, loud critiques, or distracting actions that interfere with rehearsals, performances, or other official ESC functions”.

Would Bambie Thug’s post-Eurovision interview with “Beep the EU” message go against the new Code of Conduct?

Eurovision Israel Boycott – Conclusion

As soon as someone questions Israel’s participation in Eurovision, defenders – official and non-official – quickly unleash a familiar arsenal of accusations: calling proposed boycotts “anti-Semitic” or “a reward for Hamas terrorism”.

“Remember, we are the ones who went through genocide”, sings a mock Eden Golan in Eretz Nehederet, a comedy show on Keshet 12 that kidnaps Nemo, Bambie Thug, Joost Klein, and Marina Satti, demanding an apology to the Israeli representative. After the “parody” trivializes the Holocaust, the real Eden Golan blesses the show with her presence, offering forgiveness and declaring, “music brings us together”.

Maybe it does. But insisting on harmony while war dominates the headlines only deepens the dissonance.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched in Basel despite the public rally ban. Will Malmö protests have a May reprise in Switzerland?

“The lyrics this year can’t be construed as anything but political, so I don’t even know how they allowed it to compete”, says Juror B in Wiwiblogs review of “New Day Will Rise”. The only Eurovision review on this popular website that had to anonymize the jurors (all other songs are reviewed under authors’ names) shows how real the fear of a backlash has become in a continent that otherwise prides itself on freedom of speech.

EBU continues to believe that banning all political expression is the safest path forward. But in democracies, silence has never been a well-accepted solution. Despite wishful thinking, Eurovision’s “unifying spirit” sounds increasingly hollow when it embraces countries accused of war crimes while silencing those who speak out.

In January, despite bans on public rallies, over 15,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators took to the streets of Basel to criticize Switzerland’s declared neutrality as complicity in genocide. Could Malmö protests have a May reprise in the homeland of Eurovision?

By trying to avoid controversy, the EBU may think it’s keeping the peace. But when it comes to Gaza, silence is not neutral – it’s political. As fans and artists push for Eurovision to reflect the realities of the world, the question becomes: Can a global stage for culture afford to mute the very voices it claims to amplify?

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