Eurovision Liverpool legacy guide

Liverpool’s Eurovision bid in context

Liverpool’s successful bid to host on Ukraine’s behalf wasn’t a foregone conclusion, and understanding the competitive process adds useful context. Several UK cities submitted formal bids to the BBC and European Broadcasting Union, each making the case for their existing arena capacity, hospitality infrastructure, transport links and, less tangibly, their ability to authentically celebrate Ukrainian culture alongside their own. Liverpool’s bid leaned heavily on the city’s deep, internationally recognised musical heritage as evidence it could host with genuine cultural credibility rather than simply logistical competence, an argument that evidently persuaded organisers given the eventual selection.

The competitive nature of the process is worth knowing because it means Liverpool’s hosting wasn’t simply awarded by default or convenience — the city actively campaigned for the opportunity, seeing real strategic value in it for tourism, international profile and civic confidence, all of which materialised to varying degrees in the years since.

Hosting on behalf of a country at war

In May 2023, Liverpool hosted the Eurovision Song Contest — one of the most-watched non-sporting events in the world — on behalf of Ukraine, whose entry Kalush Orchestra had won the 2022 contest but whose country was unable to host safely due to the ongoing Russian invasion. The arrangement was unusual and deliberately symbolic: Liverpool staged the show, but Ukrainian culture, imagery and messaging ran through every part of it, from the M&S Bank Arena stage design to citywide public art and a “EuroFestival” of free events across the city in the weeks around the contest. It was, by most accounts, one of the most warmly received host cities in the competition’s history, and Liverpool leaned into it with genuine enthusiasm rather than treating it as a logistical obligation.

What the arena show itself involved

For context on the scale of the event Liverpool hosted, the 2023 grand final and its associated semi-finals drew a global television audience estimated in the hundreds of millions, alongside tens of thousands of ticketed attendees at the M&S Bank Arena across the contest week, making it comfortably one of the largest single broadcast events ever staged in the city, dwarfing even major football fixtures or the Grand National in terms of live global audience reach. That scale of international broadcast exposure — Liverpool’s name and waterfront imagery beamed into households across dozens of countries simultaneously — is part of why the city invested so heavily in making the most of the opportunity through the citywide EuroFestival programming rather than treating it purely as a ticketed arena event to be hosted and forgotten.

Why it’s a fading legacy now

Several years on, it’s honest to say Eurovision’s visible footprint in Liverpool has faded considerably, as is normal for host cities once the specific contest moves on (Eurovision 2024 was hosted in Sweden, 2025 in Switzerland). There’s no permanent Eurovision museum or standalone attraction — most of what remains is folded into other institutions rather than being a dedicated draw in its own right. If you’re visiting Liverpool specifically chasing Eurovision content in 2026, it’s worth calibrating expectations: this is a legacy you’ll find in pieces, not a headline attraction.

Comparing 2023 to other recent host cities

Placing Liverpool’s hosting within the wider recent pattern of Eurovision host cities helps clarify what’s typical versus distinctive about its legacy. Most Eurovision host cities see a similar arc — intense, concentrated attention and investment in the immediate build-up and during the event itself, followed by a gradual fading of dedicated branding and infrastructure once the contest moves to its next host, since Eurovision’s format doesn’t lend itself to permanent host-city institutions in the way, say, an Olympic host city might retain purpose-built venues. Liverpool’s experience broadly follows this pattern rather than being unusual, though the specific “hosting for Ukraine” framing gave the 2023 edition a distinct emotional resonance that’s arguably outlasted the more generic contest branding other recent host cities have experienced.

Where the legacy survives

The Museum of Liverpool holds material related to the 2023 hosting as part of its broader coverage of the city’s cultural and musical history, situating Eurovision within the same civic pride that surrounds the Beatles and Liverpool’s Capital of Culture year. The British Music Experience, Liverpool’s museum of British popular music more broadly, also references Eurovision within its wider coverage of the city’s musical identity — worth combining with a visit if music history interests you, covered in full in our British Music Experience guide. Along the waterfront, permanent public art installed for the 2023 celebrations remains in place in several spots near the Pier Head, a quieter but tangible reminder of the event for anyone who knows to look.

How the hosting arrangement actually worked

The 2023 arrangement was, in Eurovision’s nearly seven-decade history, a genuinely unusual one. Under normal Eurovision rules, the previous year’s winning country hosts the following contest, but Ukraine’s ongoing war made staging a large-scale international broadcast event there impossible on safety and logistical grounds.

The European Broadcasting Union instead ran a competitive process among willing UK cities, ultimately selecting Liverpool over other bidders including Glasgow, partly on the strength of the city’s existing large-scale event infrastructure (the M&S Bank Arena and wider waterfront) and partly because of its own deep musical identity, which organisers felt could authentically share the spotlight with Ukraine rather than simply hosting as a neutral venue. Liverpool City Council and organisers made a deliberate, well-received choice to keep Ukrainian culture, colours and messaging visible throughout the host city’s own programming rather than treating the “hosting for Ukraine” framing as a formality.

The EuroFestival programme

Beyond the contest itself, Liverpool ran an extensive “EuroFestival” of free public events in the weeks surrounding the May 2023 contest, including concerts, a fan zone on the waterfront, art installations and community events designed to extend Eurovision’s reach well beyond the ticketed arena show. This citywide programming is part of why the event is remembered so fondly locally — it wasn’t experienced only by the relatively small number of people who attended the arena final, but by a much larger cross-section of the city through free, accessible public events along the waterfront and in the city centre.

Media coverage and international perception

The international press coverage generated by Liverpool’s 2023 hosting deserves brief mention as its own category of legacy, distinct from physical exhibitions or public art. For several weeks around the contest, Liverpool featured prominently in international news, entertainment and travel media across dozens of countries, generating a volume and breadth of positive international coverage that would be difficult and expensive to replicate through conventional tourism marketing alone. Some of that coverage specifically highlighted Liverpool’s own attractions and character beyond the contest itself — waterfront imagery, Beatles references and general city profile pieces accompanying Eurovision-specific reporting — meaning the event functioned, in effect, as a significant free international marketing campaign for the city as a destination, a legacy that’s genuinely hard to measure precisely but was widely regarded locally as one of the hosting’s most valuable outcomes.

The permanent public art

Several pieces of public art commissioned for the 2023 celebrations remain installed along Liverpool’s waterfront today, generally low-key rather than heavily signposted, which is part of why casual visitors often walk past them without realising the connection. Look for installations and plaques in the vicinity of the Pier Head and the stretch toward the Royal Albert Dock; exact locations and pieces can shift as public art programmes evolve, so treat this as an invitation to look closely along your waterfront walk rather than a guaranteed checklist.

The wider musical identity connection

Liverpool’s willingness to host Eurovision so enthusiastically fits naturally into the city’s self-image as a global music capital, a thread running through everything from the Beatles’ legacy to the contemporary live music scene covered in our Liverpool music scene guide. Hosting Eurovision wasn’t really a one-off event for Liverpool so much as a continuation of a decades-long civic identity built around music — the same instinct that produced Sound City and Africa Oyé, covered in our festivals guide.

Visiting for the legacy today

Don’t expect a dedicated Eurovision experience — instead, build it into a wider museum and waterfront day. The Museum of Liverpool and British Music Experience are both realistic half-day combinations, and the waterfront art pieces are easily spotted on a walk along the Pier Head toward the Royal Albert Dock without requiring a special detour. If Ukraine’s story specifically interests you beyond the Eurovision connection, some walking tour guides can point out where 2023’s citywide events and installations were staged, though this is a niche request worth mentioning in advance rather than assuming it’s standard content.

Why Liverpool was a fitting host beyond the arena

It’s worth understanding why Liverpool, rather than a more conventionally “neutral” host city, made sense for this particular arrangement. The city’s musical self-image — built over decades around the Beatles’ legacy, a genuinely active contemporary live scene, and a civic willingness to invest heavily in music as an economic and cultural asset — meant Eurovision 2023 landed as a continuation of an existing identity rather than an imported one-off event. That’s a meaningfully different feeling to a Eurovision hosted purely because a city had the right size of arena, and it’s part of why locals still speak about the event with real warmth years on, even as the specific contest branding has faded from daily visibility.

Kalush Orchestra and the emotional core of the event

It’s worth remembering the specific emotional weight the 2023 contest carried, since it explains why the “hosting for Ukraine” framing mattered so much to how Liverpool approached the event. Kalush Orchestra’s 2022 win with “Stefania,” a song originally written as a tribute to one of the band member’s mothers but which took on new meaning as a wartime anthem after Russia’s invasion began just months before the contest, meant the entire 2023 event carried real emotional and political weight beyond typical Eurovision spectacle. Liverpool organisers and performers were conscious throughout of hosting on behalf of a country actively at war, and that awareness shaped everything from the stage design, which incorporated Ukrainian visual motifs throughout, to the choice of Ukrainian presenters alongside British ones, to the overall tone of an event that managed to be both a genuine celebration and a visible act of solidarity.

What visitors chasing the Eurovision connection should actually expect

If Eurovision is the specific reason for your Liverpool visit, it’s worth setting expectations honestly: there is no dedicated Eurovision museum, no permanently branded Eurovision quarter, and no year-round Eurovision-themed attraction. What you’ll find is a scattering of references within larger institutions (the Museum of Liverpool, the British Music Experience) and a small amount of waterfront public art — genuinely findable, but requiring some deliberate looking rather than being an obvious, signposted trail. Visitors expecting a Eurovision-equivalent of, say, the Beatles Story museum will likely be disappointed; this is a legacy best folded into a broader museum and waterfront day rather than treated as a standalone draw.

The wider economic and reputational legacy

Beyond the physical traces covered above, it’s worth acknowledging Eurovision 2023’s less visible but arguably more significant legacy: a substantial, measurable boost to Liverpool’s visitor economy and international media profile in the immediate aftermath, with hotel occupancy, tourism spending and international press coverage all seeing a significant uplift around the event itself and, to a lesser but real degree, in the months that followed. City tourism bodies have pointed to Eurovision as a case study in how a single, well-executed major event can shift a city’s international perception relatively quickly — evidence used to support continued investment in Liverpool’s events and hospitality infrastructure since. Whether or not a visitor can point to specific physical Eurovision landmarks today, this reputational and economic legacy arguably outlasts any individual exhibition or public artwork in its impact on the city’s ongoing trajectory as a destination.

The M&S Bank Arena’s ongoing role

The M&S Bank Arena, where the 2023 grand final was staged, continues operating as one of Liverpool’s principal large-scale entertainment venues, hosting concerts, conferences and other major events year-round rather than existing as any kind of static Eurovision memorial. Visitors interested in seeing the actual venue can check its current events programme, though there’s generally no formal Eurovision-specific tour or exhibition on offer there outside of occasional special anniversary programming that may run around the contest’s dates in future years — worth checking specifically if the timing of your visit happens to align.

Practical tips

Because most of the legacy is now folded into existing museums rather than being a standalone attraction, there’s no separate ticket or booking to arrange — it’s simply part of what you’ll see at the Museum of Liverpool or British Music Experience if you visit anyway. If specific Eurovision memorabilia or exhibition content is a priority, it’s worth checking current museum listings before travelling, since displays rotate and what’s on show can change year to year. For visitors building a music-focused Liverpool trip, our Liverpool music scene guide and live music venues guide give the fuller contemporary picture beyond the Beatles and Eurovision alone.