ESC IN WIEN TOUR - Whoosh pre-parties with JJ & CONCHITA biographical tour

The Eurovision Song Contest is the world's largest live music event, watched by 200 million viewers, with 37 countries now taking part. We use this opportunity to recognise the modern diversity of Vienna, by looking each year at the country hosting the music festival (Liverpool 23, Malmö 24, Basel 2025...).

When our Swiss sponsors at the Embassy heard that Austria might win the competition in 2025, they laughed thinking about how we could possibly make a tour about the Austrian influence on Wien in 2026. This would be a bizarre meta tour. So we respond with a proud tour about who exactly our last 2 winners are: JJ and Conchita Wurst. We will look at their lives here in Vienna, what shaped them, where they go, and who they are.

We will make a pre-party walk, on Eurovision day, bringing together the Queer community, Whoosh fans interested in a new perspective on their home town diversity, and of course kitsch music lovers. This will be massive!

How has Eurovision shaped Vienna? And what effect did winning Eurovision have on Conchita's career - she was famous in Austria long before winning the competition in Copenhagen in 2014 for Austria. How has their identity developed, with the multiple identities, Conchita and Wurst. Where is Vienna's gay scene in 2026? With JJ, we look at his upbringing (after Dubai) in Döbling, at the Theresianum, at Staatsoper and now the Musik und Kunst Universität der Stadt Wien. He is half-Filipina, half-Austrian, and proudly gay. And he has some big views on contemporary politics!

As lovers of pan-European identity, we celebrate all those Euro moments, like the football Champions League (music by Handel via Brit Tony Britten), Eurovision broadcasting (music by Charpentier), and of course the original European harmony anthem, from Beethoven.

With this tour, we want to update that sense of European harmony through music. We need more cross-border dialogue and understanding, whether it is sport, music or media.

And this being a Whoosh tour, we bring our usual mix of politics and ridiculousness. The (cool) LGBTQIA+ music will be loud, across our pilgrimage.

Later on, we get together to watch the Eurovision on a big screen, live from, er, Wien.