Burgas, Bulgaria, will host the Eurovision Song Contest 2027. The city on the Black Sea coast won the race to organise the 71st edition of the event, scheduled for May, following Bulgaria’s historic victory in 2026 in Vienna with DARA and her song “Bangaranga”.
The dates are already set: semi-finals on Tuesday 11 and Thursday 13 May, with the final on Saturday 15 May. Everything will take place at Arena Burgas, a venue opened in 2023. In the final stretch, Burgas beat out Sofia, while Varna and Plovdiv had also been in the running during the earlier phase of bidding.
The decision to choose the Black Sea city was driven mainly by its hotels, transport links, infrastructure and capacity to host the thousands of people who travel for Eurovision every year. The goal is to involve not just the arena itself, but to turn Burgas into a kind of giant Contest village.
Alongside the choice of host city comes a tightening of security rules. And the change is a significant one. From 2027, winning Eurovision will no longer automatically guarantee the right to host the following year’s edition.
A country involved in a war, a serious geopolitical crisis or a situation deemed dangerous could be declared unfit to host the event. The assessment will take into account the safety of delegations, audiences and staff, as well as the broader stability of the country in question.
Whenever doubts arise, the EBU will be able to request an independent assessment of the security situation and consult with Eurovision’s Reference Group. If the verdict is negative, the Contest will be handed over to another broadcaster, which will take charge of the entire organisation.
This wouldn’t be a first. The same thing happened with Ukraine after its 2022 win: because of the war, the country was unable to organise the following edition, and Eurovision 2023 was moved to Liverpool, in the United Kingdom.
But the changes don’t stop there. From 2027, the minimum age to compete rises from 16 to 18. There’s also a crackdown on the use of pre-recorded elements: the lead vocal must continue to sing the song’s melody live and cannot be replaced or excessively supported by recorded tracks.
Burgas, then, is gearing up for its big celebration in May. But Eurovision 2027 will also mark a shift in the Contest’s rulebook, with international security now officially among the decisive criteria for determining who can actually host the event.
