The Eurovision Song Contest is held each year in the country that won the competition the previous year.
It has been running since 1956 and was created to bring Europe together after the war.
Winning the competition gives countries a chance to show off their country in an attempt to boost tourism.
Many countries compete, even some not technically in Europe, such as Australia. These countires may have been specially invited.

In December prior to the competition, all the countries select a song to enter the competition with.
Some have a tele-voting process, some just have someone pick their entry.
All countries have to qualify, except for six nations: France, United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and Italy, who pay to be in the contest.
The last place that automatically qualifies is the previous year's winner.
Apart from the big five and the host, the remaining countries compete in two semi finals held during the week before the competition.
Only ten from each semi-final qualify, so that in the grand final there are 26 entries.

Once all the entries have been performed, there is an interval to allow each country to vote on the entries.
This is normally in the format of a phone-in vote, but this is also combined with a jury vote.
Each country that participated, even if they didn't qualify for the final, vote.
As of 2016, the way the results were presented was changed to try to counter the biased block voting.
Each country presents their 12 points choice from a jury vote, with the 1-7, 8 & 10 points on the screen straight away.
When all the voting countries have given their 12 points, the contest presenters announce the viewer's votes country by country, starting with the country that got the fewest points, up to the country with the most points.
The winning entry gets to perform an encore, and they will host the event next year

Before each country perform their song, the broadcasters show a short introduction film about 30 seconds in length, showing parts of the host country.
They are designed to introduce each performance, but also to allow the crew to change the stage set-up without it being broadcast.

There are very strict rules for competing in Eurovision and one of the rules is that all performances must be sung live, not mimed.
It used to be the case that the hosts had to provide an orchestra, but that requirement was dropped in 1997.
The music may be pre-recorded, and you may notice performers miming playing instruments, the most noticeable example is if there is a drummer on stage, as there should be microphones all around the drum kit.

You can watch it outside of Europe by going to the website http://www.eurovision.tv/page/webtv?program=213583
You can also watch it on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no1v1-2HZ6g But apparently Canada is blocked for some reason (and posssibly other countries too). In that case I suggest the Eurovision website.
A popular link for watching the contest http://www.logotv.com/shows/eurovision- ... /live.html