It took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, following the country's victory at the 2013 contest with the song "Only Teardrops" by Emmelie de Forest.

The winner was Austria with the song "Rise Like a Phoenix", performed by Conchita Wurst and written by Charley Mason, Joey Patulka, Ali Zuckowski, and Julian Maas.

The Danish organisers spent in total DKK 334 million, three times more than the initially budgeted costs, and were furthermore accused of nepotism.

[6][7][8] The contest was held at the former shipyard Refshaleøen, in the B&W Hallerne in Copenhagen, with the social networking hashtag "#JoinUs" as the motto.

He also announced that the aim was to make the Eurovision 2014 into the greenest contest to date since Copenhagen had been elected European Green Capital for 2014.

[14][15] The contest was provisionally set to take place on 13, 15 and 17 May 2014, however, the dates were later brought forward a week in order to accommodate the candidate cities.

[3] On 17 June 2013, the municipality executive of Aalborg decided not to bid for hosting the contest due to the city's lack of sufficient hotel capacity.

[18] On 19 June 2013, the deadline for placing bids on hosting the contest,[17] it was reported that Wonderful Copenhagen, the official convention, event and visitors bureau of the Greater Copenhagen area, had proposed three venues in its bid on hosting the contest: The Parken Stadium, a large tent on the grounds of DR Byen and the B&W Hallerne.

[19][20] On 25 June 2013, the Municipality of Fredericia announced that the Triangle Region had withdrawn its bid on hosting the contest, due to the lack of a suitable venue.

However, no venues in the region met those requirements and, therefore, Fredericia was no longer in the running for becoming host city of the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest.

[27] The "Red Carpet" event, where the contestants and their delegations are presented before the accredited press and fans, took place at Copenhagen City Hall on 4 May 2014 at 17:00 CET, followed by the Opening Ceremony.

[41] Bosnian broadcaster BHRT initially stated their intention to participate in the contest; however, in late 2013 it was announced that they would not be taking part due to a lack of sponsorship.

[32][44][45] Active EBU member broadcasters in Andorra, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Monaco, Morocco, Serbia, Slovakia and Turkey confirmed non-participation prior to the announcement of the participants list by the EBU, some of them citing reasons such as poor results in previous editions, dissatisfaction with the mixed jury/televote voting system, the European financial crisis and the 2012–13 Cypriot financial crisis.

[46][34][47][48][49][50][51][35][52][53][54][55] While Kosovan broadcaster RTK did not voice any intention regarding the 2014 contest, Kosovo's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Petrit Selimi told the Swedish television programme Korrespondenterna [sv] that he thought Kosovo would be granted EBU membership and acceptance into the Eurovision in time for the 2014 edition;[56][57] however, the country failed to meet the requirement of being recognized as an independent country by the International Telecommunication Union, and was not granted membership in the EBU.

[58] Liechtensteiner broadcaster 1 FL TV had originally intended to join the EBU in time to participate in the 2013 contest,[59] but the government never granted the required financial subsidies and the broadcaster put off the aim to make their debut to 2014; however, the government again failed to provide any funds and 1 FL TV was unable to join the contest.

[68] Prior to the allocation draw, on 24 November 2013 it was announced that Norway and Sweden would perform in different semi-finals in order to maximise the availability of tickets for visitors from both countries.

[70] The remaining participating countries, excluding the automatic finalists (Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom), were split into six pots, based on voting patterns from the previous ten years.

[77] The postcards used to introduce a country and their participants were shot in their respective countries and featured the artists using unique ways to create their country's flag, e.g. the postcard for the United Kingdom features Molly creating the Union Flag from AEC Routemaster buses, Royal Mail vans, and people wearing blue raincoats along with strips of red and white paper, and the postcard for Denmark features Basim and his singers using old furniture and red and white paint to paint the Danish flag.

[78] The postcards then ended with the act taking a picture on a camera or phone and a close up of the resulting artwork was shown onscreen.

[79] Maria Rørbye Rønn stated in an interview that "By choosing Pernille Gaardbo, we have a person who has all the necessary leadership skills, which are essential in order to run a project of this magnitude, and the technical insight for such a large TV-production, which the Eurovision Song Contest is".

It was reported by the EBU that the 2014 contest was viewed by a worldwide television audience of a record breaking 195 million viewers.

During the photo session, a fan managed to breach security and approach Wurst, giving her flowers and a Danish flag.

As security personnel realised the flower giver was not supposed to be there, they began to drag him away, and the fan showed a piece of paper reading "#free anakata".

The Premios Ondas (English: Wave Awards) have honoured the production values of the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 in one of their categories.

The Marcel Bezençon Awards, organised since 2002 by Sweden's then-Head of Delegation and 1992 representative Christer Björkman, and 1984 winner Richard Herrey, honours songs in the contest's final.

After all votes were cast, the top-ranked entry in the 2014 poll was "Undo" performed by Sanna Nielsen; the top five results are shown below.

Named after Belgium's representative who came last in the 1993 contest, wearing her self-designed dress, the award was handed by the fansite House of Eurovision.

The album featured all 37 songs that entered in the 2014 contest, including the semi-finalists that failed to qualify into the grand final.

It also featured the official #JoinUs theme song "Rainmaker", performed by the 2013 contest winner Emmelie de Forest.