The Eurovision Song Contest (French: Concours Eurovision de la Chanson) is an annual competition held among active member countries of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

Each member country submits a song to be performed on live television and then casts votes for the other countries' songs to determine the most popular song in the competition. The contest has been broadcast every year since its inauguration in 1956 and is one of the longest-running television programmes in the world. It is also one of the most watched non-sporting events in the world, with audience figures having been quoted in recent years as anything between 100 million and 600 million internationally. Eurovision has also been broadcast outside Europe to such places as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Egypt, India, Japan, Jordan, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States, Uruguay and Venezuela despite the fact that that they do not compete. Since 2000, the contest has also been broadcast over the Internet, with more than 74,000 people in almost 140 countries having watched the 2006 edition online.

Guy Theodore Sebastian (born 26 October 1981) is an Australian pop, R&B, and soul singer-songwriter who was the first winner of Australian Idol in 2003. Since 2010 he has been a judge on Australia's The X Factor. Sebastian has released six top ten platinum/multi-platinum albums, including a number one and two. He has also released 11 top 15 singles, including eight top tens, with five achieving number one. He has the most number one singles for an Australian male artist in Australian music history, and is equal third overall for all Australian acts. Four of his singles have reached multi-platinum certification, with "Angels Brought Me Here", "Who's That Girl" and "Don't Worry Be Happy" achieving 4× platinum. "Angels Brought Me Here" was the highest selling song in Australia last decade. With 30 platinum and two gold certifications and combined album and single sales of over 2.2 million in Australia, Sebastian has the highest certifications and sales of any Australian Idol contestant.

"Angels Brought Me Here" also reached number one in four Asian countries and New Zealand. Sebastian had a second number one in New Zealand with "Who's That Girl", two other top ten singles and a number three album, and gained four platinum and two gold certifications there. He has worked with a number of well-known American musicians. He co-wrote songs with Brian McKnight and Robin Thicke for his album Beautiful Life, which also included a duet with Mýa. The Memphis Album was recorded with members of the MGs including Steve Cropper, and they were his band on his 2008 Australian tour. Like It Like That has three tracks with John Mayer on guitar and backing vocals, and "Art of Love" featuring Jordin Sparks. "Who's That Girl" from his album Twenty Ten features US rapper Eve.

Alexander Igoryevich Rybak (Russian: Алекса́ндр И́горевич Рыба́к) or in Belarusian Alyaxandr Igaravich Rybak (Аляксандр І́гаравіч Рыбак), born 13 May 1986 in Byelorussian SSR, Soviet Union is a Norwegian singer-composer, violinist, pianist, writer, and actor. Representing Norway in the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow, Russia, Rybak won the contest with 387 points—the highest tally any country has achieved in the history of Eurovision—with "Fairytale", a song he wrote and composed. His debut album, Fairytales, charted in the top 20 in nine European countries, including a No. 1 position in Norway and Russia.

Rybak was born on 13 May 1986, in Minsk, Belarus—which at that time was the Belarusian SSR in the Soviet Union. When he was 4 years old, he and his family moved to Norway. Rybak was baptized and raised in the Orthodox religion. At the age of five, Rybak began to play the piano and the violin. His parents are Natalia Valentinovna Rybak, a classical pianist, and Igor Alexandrovich Rybak, a well-known classical violinist who performs alongside Pinchas Zukerman. He stated "I always liked to entertain and somehow that is my vocation". Rybak bought a new apartment and lives now at Aker Brygge (Oslo, Norway).