9th Grand Prix

9° Grand Prix Europe (fr. Neuvième Grand Prix de l'Europe) was the ninth edition of the annual Grand Prix contest. The contest was held in La Fenice in Venice, Italyg, following the victory of Naiola in the 8th Grand Prix. A record of 20 countries participated in the contest, with Cyprus, Greece and San Marino making their debut while Belgium returned.

The contest was won by Spain, represented by Armando Selva with song "Mi Cuento de Hadas". It was the first and, to date, only victory of the Iberian nation. Norway placed second, up one place compared to the previous contest, being also the first nation to score over 100 points and not win. The host country, Italy, reached third place. All of the countries that placed on the bottom in the 8th Grand Prix: Austria, Denmark and Morocco, also came last in the 9th edition of the contest, albeit they switched places: this forced a change of selection process within these countries. They would all finish in top 10 a year later.

Location
The contest took place in La Fenice, Venetian opera house able to seat 1126 people. Venice was previosuly interested in hosting the 5th Grand Prix but lost to Rome. It wasn't the only city applying for host status, with Naples and Verona also sending in an application. The Italian broadcaster, RAI, decided to conduct the show in Venice as the venue was one of the most renowned opera houses in the world.

The show
An increase of the number of participants and, with it, increased length of the voting procedure caused the contest to last for more than 2 hours, which was a record duration at that time. Because of that, the following contests were moved to start at 8 PM (GMT) instead of 9 PM.

Contrary to the previous contest, the show was hosted by 3 presenters, all of whom were women. Elleanor Reventi, a TV host, was the main presenter, supported by an actress Simone Vertuglia and Naiola, the winner of the 8th Grand Prix. Naiola additionally opened the show with her winning song, Mercurio, while the interval act was led by the Venetian jazz singer, Leonard Oterio promoting his hit single Mille Lucci.

Several delegations issued a dispute commenting on a running draw, with countries using the same language singing after each other (i.e. Greece and Cyprus, the Netherlands and Belgium, United Kingdom and Ireland). The broadcaster stated that the draw was completely random and that these countries were paired only by chance. Dutch representative stated that RAI did it deliberately so non-Romance speaking nations would lose points by that - he later apologized after the contest.

Participants
A record of 20 participants appeared in the contest, with Cyprus, Greece and San Marino debuting. Belgium returned after a one year absence, represented by its Flemish broadcaster, VRT.

Returning artists
Zergê Ferat returned after representing Tunisia in the 6th Grand Prix. He reached the second place then, the best result for that country to that date. Claudia Poulin represneted Monaco for the third time, previously singing in the 3rd and 7th editions. She finished second and fifth, respectively.