Crunch the Eurovision numbers to find the formula behind 2023's winner

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The University of Liverpool, together with the Royal Statistical Society’s Merseyside Local Group, is hosting a free hybrid event to crunch the numbers behind what makes a winning tune at the Eurovision Song Contest.

On Wednesday 26 April at 2pm, international academics will come together on the University of Liverpool campus to discuss the data generated by Eurovision. They’ll uncover what statistical patterns within lyrics and voting say about the contest, try to find what makes that elusive “winning formula” and even make some predictions behind how this year’s performers will fare.

Four speakers will try to identify whether certain genres, sounds and sentiments of song can be brought together to find a way to a definite ‘douze points.’

They’ll also look at the importance of the televote versus the jury vote and how much the political landscape matters in who will take the Eurovision crown.

The two-hour event will take place in Brodie Tower (Lecture Room 305a) and refreshments will be provided. It will be freely available to watch live on the RSS Merseyside Local Group YouTube channel and will appear on the homepage when the event starts.

Event host, Dr Liam Brierley, Research Fellow in Health Data Science and Chair of the Merseyside Local Group of the Royal Statistical Society said: “I’m a lifelong Eurovision fan and so, like lots of people on campus, I’m really looking forward to Liverpool hosting the contest on behalf of Ukraine this year.

“As a statistician, I particularly love Eurovision as there’s so much data which emerges from the contest we can use to get fascinating insights into the music, the drama and the entertainment through statistics. For example, a mathematical language analysis has found that Eurovision song lyrics have become around 30 per cent more negative since 2020 and it’s really interesting to think about why and what this means.

“We hope to welcome as many Eurovision fans as possible to campus (or online) on Wednesday to talk about how the numbers behind the contest can help us try and find a winner and what we might predict around the 2023 entries. Eurovision is nothing if not unpredictable so we can’t promise a definite answer but we can certainly have an interesting song contest discussion!”

For more information about the event, and to register, click here. Please register only if attending in-person. For those unable to join live, questions are accepted for the speakers in advance here.

For more information about how the University of Liverpool is celebrating Eurovision, visit our web hub here.