The contest was held at the Nederlands Congresgebouw on 19 April 1980 and was hosted by Dutch actress Marlous Fluitsma, although each song was introduced by a presenter from the participating nation (in some cases, this was the same person providing the commentary).

[3][4] However, some days later rumours emerged that the resignation was actually the result of a controversy related to the date of the contest which had been provisionally confirmed for 19 April 1980, coinciding with the Yom HaZikaron holiday.

Upon learning of the decision taken by the Israeli authorities, the EBU sent a public apology, claiming that "the lack of employees with knowledge of the Hebrew language has placed it in a strained situation".

However, despite the good will, the broadcaster this time alleging the same financial problems that delayed the edition of 1977 ended up not taking over production.The third option was Radiotelevisión Española (RTVE), due to the fact that the Spanish song had come in second place the previous year.

However, along the period of Spanish transition to democracy already started, RTVE also withdrew, despite the fact that the tourism department of the Costa del Sol region was already working in a bid of Congress Center of Torremolinos as the contest's proposed venue, with a view to harnessing the area's touristic potential.

As it accepted the responsibility with little time to organize and produce the contest, with a small budget and reusing practically the same structure used four years earlier, the Dutch broadcaster host spent just NLG 900.000 to hold the event.

During the live interval act performance of San Fernando by The Dutch Rhythm Steel and Show Band with the Lee Jackson dancers, Hans van Willigenburg intercut brief interviews with some of the participants backstage in the green room, speaking to the singers from Germany, Luxembourg, the UK, Ireland, Norway and the Netherlands, each in their own language.

For the voting sequence, Marlous Fluitsma used a unique telephone to speak to each of the nineteen jury spokespersons, although the phones were simply props and were not connected.

Broadcasters were able to send commentators to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language and to relay information about the artists and songs to their television viewers.

[20] The contest was also reportedly broadcast in Cyprus, Israel, Iceland and Jordan, in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania and the Soviet Union via Intervision, and in Cuba, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates, with an estimated audience of 450 million viewers.

[21][22][23] The contest was reportedly broadcast via radio in countries including Belgium, Finland, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Turkey and the United Kingdom.