• The Eurovision Song Contest 2018 was the festival's 63th edition, held for the very first time in Portugal (Lisbon).
  • There were 43 participating countries, matching the record set by 2008 and 2011.
  • After two years of relative harmony the results of the professional juries and the televoters were quite divers. The jury's chose Austria (1) and Sweden (2), televoters chose Israel (1) and Cyprus (2). The combination of both votes showed Israël as the final winner: Netta and her song Toy.
  • The Portuguese chose the slogan 'All aboard!'. Their own entry sadly came last in the final.
  • Usual qualifiers like Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Romania didn't get through to the finals.
  • The final also marked the comeback of last year's winner Salvador Sobral, who performed for the first time after his heart transplantation. He sang his Amar pelos dois together with the most famous star of Brazilian music performed: Caetano Veloso.
  • A special participant was Alexander Rybak for Norway, who had won the Eurovision Song Contest back in 2009. This time he ended up in fifteenth place.
  • During the performance of the British SuRie a man ran up to the stage and grabbed her microphone. After some seconds she continued her singing in a strong and fierce way. She was offered the option to perform again by the EBU, but SuRie and her team were extremely proud of her performance and decided together that there was no reason to perform the song again.