Delta Goodrem, sun goddess, electrifies the stage in Vienna
In just three breathtaking minutes, Australia’s Delta Goodrem delivered a Eurovision performance for the history books, booking a place in this weekend’s final and restoring Australia’s place in the world’s oldest music competition.
Performing to a crowd of 16,000 in Vienna, Austria, and a TV audience of nearly 40 million people worldwide, he sang his way across a moonlit stage EclipseShe ends her performance with a shimmering golden explosion representing the sun.
Although video footage and still images of Goodrem’s performance have been posted online since her rehearsals earlier this week, the live performance on Friday morning (AEST) was the first time her entire elaborate stage performance had been seen.
The performance, the brainchild of stage directors and producers Dan Shipton and Ross Nicholson, received great response in Vienna. Eclipse Written by Goodrem with Jonas Myrin, Ferras Alqaisi and Michael Fatkin.
The view from the side of the stage revealed the magic behind Goodrem’s “ascension” for the song’s final section: The production moves her past a moonlit harpist towards a shimmering gold piano, then places her on a slowly rising pedestal stage to rapturous applause from the audience.
The team was invisible on the TV screen and the transitions were seamless. But the secret sauce was the Versa Ribbon Lift, a custom piece of stage automation that used helical ribbons of high-strength steel to create a tall vertical riser over a relatively small stage area.
The technology has also been used by pop superstar Beyoncé at the Coachella music festival and at a concert in Dubai in 2023.
In the exciting final part of Goodrem’s performance, safety lines on the riser were hidden in the folds of the handmade gold dress, whose sparkle was enhanced by 7,000 Swarovski crystals and took more than 500 hours to sew by hand.
Goodrem’s performance confirmed Australia’s place in this weekend’s Eurovision grand final. We are currently one of the 10 countries that advanced to the second semi-final. The others were Bulgaria, Ukraine, Norway, Romania, Malta, Cyprus, Albania, Denmark and Czechia. This means that Azerbaijan, Luxembourg, Armenia, Switzerland and Latvia are out of the competition.
The semi-finalists now join the successful 10 countries in the first semi-final (Greece, Finland, Belgium, Sweden, Moldova, Israel, Serbia, Croatia, Lithuania and Poland) and will face four of the largest members of the European Broadcasting Union, the so-called “Big Five”: France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, as well as host nation Austria, which has an automatic place in the final.
Spain, the fifth member of the Big Five, withdrew from this year’s competition, protesting Israel’s involvement in the wake of the war in Gaza and the failure of the European Broadcasting Union to condemn them. Four more countries joined the boycott: Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands and Slovenia.
It is perhaps no surprise that Goodrem made it to the grand final. He is a seasoned stage performer, talented instrumentalist, and accomplished singer-songwriter with three decades of experience behind him.
It also comes to this year’s Eurovision equipped with two of the competition’s most important features: a compelling song and exciting and innovative stage design. Both are vital to a successful Eurovision strategy.
But in reality our passage to the second semi-final was far from assured. Australia has been in Eurovision since 2015. We have failed to qualify three times in the decade since: Montaigne in 2021, Electric Fields in 2024 and Go-Jo in 2025.
Shock back-to-back eliminations in the past two years have particularly damaged the perception that Australia is an initially uncertain player in the European singing competition. It wasn’t enough to be described as the “curse” of Eurovision, but not launching two years in a row was strategically concerning.
This year’s contest sits at a precarious intersection of issues ranging from objections to Israeli participation to concerns that the voting system is vulnerable to vote-harvesting campaigns aimed at shaking up an already numerically fragile voting system.
It is noteworthy that Austria’s most famous Eurovision winner, Conchita Wurst, issued a veiled political statement overnight stating that she had “withdrawn from the Eurovision context”. Although he did not go into detail in the statement, Wurst said: “My [Eurovision Song Contest] It remains a part of my past, not the place of my next steps.”
In the context of the geopolitical volatility of this year’s event, the announcement was seen by many as a sign of deeper tensions in the contest’s relations with participating countries and high-profile artists linked to the seven-decade-old Eurovision brand.
Earlier this week, Vienna police said they expected protests, including “blockades and attempts to disrupt order.” But so far the streets of Vienna have been relatively quiet. Most of the protest activity is expected to focus on this weekend’s finale. The use of drones is also prohibited within 1.5 kilometers of important venues, including the Wiener Stadthalle.
All these issues are converging as the EBU plans to launch a side event called Eurovision Song Contest Asia. The inaugural edition will be held on November 14 in Bangkok, Thailand, with 10 countries confirmed as participants: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam.
A US adaptation, The American Song Contest, aired in 2022 with all 50 US states, five territories and Washington DC competing. This iteration was not successful; It reached about 2.8 million viewers in the US, but dropped to 1.6 million. Its failure was largely blamed on its inability to stand out in a TV market flooded with talent shows.
In the 2026 Eurovision contest, artists and songs from 35 countries are performing in 20 languages. According to the competition rules, songs must be original, no longer than three minutes and performed live.
SBS will broadcast the Eurovision grand final live at 5am AEST on Sunday. The 1st semi-final will be replayed tonight at 7.30pm (AEST); The 2nd semi-final and grand final will be repeated on Saturday and Sunday at 19.30 (AEST) respectively.
Michael Idato is general culture editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect with: X or email.
