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.

Sergey Vyacheslavovich Lazarev (Russian: Сергей Вячеславович Лазарев) (born 1 April 1983) is a singer, dancer and actor born in Moscow, Russia. He is most famous for his singing career, when he rose to fame as the dark-haired member of the group Smash!!. The group broke up in 2006. Since then Lazarev has pursued a solo career.

From the age six to nine Sergey Lazarev went in for artistic gymnastics. Lazarev began his acting and singing career before the age of 10, singing in the Lokteus Children Choir. At the age of 14, he had already received his first musical award, won several children's song contests, and ended up as a member of child group Neposedi (Непоседы), the same group in which Yulia Volkova and Lena Katina of t.A.T.u met each other. Also his friend Vlad Topalov (Влад Топалов) joined the group, who later would become the other half of the group Smash!!.

When he was eleven, he sang in the Pokrovsky Theatre, had parts in many plays. In 1995, at the age of 12, Sergey entered the fidgets band, the same year he won the TV contest of children's gold key. As a part of the fidgets group Sergey took part in famous Russian TV programs and contests, such as "Guess the Tune", "Grasp Me", "The Morning Star", "Look Out", "The Blue Light" and "The Slaconic Bazaar". In September 1996 Sergey won the first prize at the contest Bravo Bravissimo in Italy. The same year he sang with the president orchestra led by P. Ovsyannikov.