With national final season complete and ESC rehearsal coverage over a month away, you might think we've reached a quiet patch in the Eurovision calendar. But for fans and artists alike, there are plenty of performances to enjoy. It's pre-party season!

Whether this is your first or fiftieth ESC season, I hope this guide will help you to navigate the coming month. Below you'll find up to date information about when the preparties are happening, who's going to them, and how to get tickets and go to them yourself! If you were around last year, a lot of this post will be familiar (but hopefully still useful!)

What is a pre-party?

Image credit goes to u/pdhadam from ESC Discord, who also thanks @therealrune for creating the heart graphics

The pre-parties are a series of promotional concerts designed for Eurofans in which Eurovision acts past and present take to the stage in performances across Europe. Whilst plenty of past Eurovision stars and national final hopefuls are also in attendance, the focus is naturally on the current year's crop of artists, many of whom are performing their songs live for the first time at these events. Over the past decade or so, they have become an integral part of the Eurovision preseason, seen and utilised by many acts as the perfect way to promote their songs and engage with the fanbase ahead of the business of May. They are also a cheaper and more regional alternative for Eurofans who are unable to afford to travel to the contest itself. Additionally, concerts serve as an opportunity for Eurovision artists to promote their songs further by engaging with various press and fan media outlets, leading to a lot of interviews and other fun content. This is also the first time that many of the Eurovision artists will be meeting and interacting with each other in person.

This year, four major pre-parties have been planned:

• 22nd March | Oslo: Nordic Eurovision Party
• 5th April | Amsterdam: Eurovision in Concert
• 13th April | London Eurovision Party
• 17-19th April | Madrid: PrePartyES

There were also appearances by a small number of Eurovision and national final artists at Melfest Wknd 2025 (Stockholm, 7th March) and Eurovision Party SKG (Thessaloniki, 14th March). Finally there is also MancHagen, which whilst seemingly a new pre-party is actually the second edition of last year's MalmöHagen event. The majority of their line-up are previous ESC/NF artists and drag queens, but there are currently 8 ESC 2025 artists scheduled to appear across the two main events on the 11th and 12th of April.

Check out Alessandra Mele's excellent behind the scenes vlogs to see what an artist's experience of the pre-parties is like!

What should I expect?

You should expect:

• An upsurge in Eurovision fan-media content. There are dedicated press events at most of these pre-parties, so expect to see lots of new interviews with artists and other fan-media press pieces.
• Videos of the live performances to be posted some time after the concerts.
• Wholesome interactions between the artists.
• People to overanalyse every performance. It's exciting watching the artists perform, especially those who were internally selected and we haven't see perform live before. It is important to remember that artists can and will change/improve before May. Whilst some shaky performances can be indicative of underwhelming vocals later on, there has also been many occasions where any preparty concerns were proven to be dramatically overblown come May (i.e. Czechia 2023). If your favourite act 'underperforms' at a preparty, they are not definitively doomed in May.
• To have a great time (if you're attending in person!)

You should not expect:

• A polished, Eurovision-like performance. These aren't multimillion euro television performances, these are the artists going on a small stage and just singing their songs. There won't be massive flashy graphics, dazzling lightshows or complex camerawork, just the artist, a microphone, a simple background graphic and a whole lot of ecstatic fans. Occasionally performers bring dancers with them but this is pretty rare.
• Great sound quality. These are performances predominately designed for the live audience, not for us watching back afterwards. The videos we see of these performances won't have the professional sound mixing of the live shows and may be distorted or quiet.

Example Performance 1: Monika Liu @ Eurovision in Concert 2022

Example Performance 2: Käärijä @ London Eurovision Party 2023

Which artists are attending which pre-parties?

In the following table, I've compiled who is currently confirmed to be appearing at each of the preparties. I will keep this table as up to date as I can as more artists are announced. Please do not tag me in comments when artists are confirmed - I keep track of these things anyway but cannot always be available to update the thread the moment an artists is announced.

Green means the artist is confirmed, and Red means that the artist isn't going. All line-ups are now finalised.

https://preview.redd.it/9x4ln04l3ose1.png?width=608&format=png&auto=webp&s=bb52b18d7250a40f2e1d853d40bbc14fcf302c9e

How do I watch the performances?

Every year, there are always videos of the performances uploaded to YouTube after the preparty has finished. Some preparties have their own camera crews who record each performance and upload it to the preparty's YouTube channel, for others we see videos taken from audience members or fan-sites. You'll see these videos getting shared and compiled by ordinary users into the community for us to enjoy!