I'm American; I'm glad to see that there's a party at the Danish Embassy this year because hopefully I can go as I wrap up my last finals before I graduate university.
For those of you who don't know what it's about, Eurovision is an annual contest that's taken place since 1956 (one of the longest-running television programs in the world) that is basically Europe's equivalent of the American Super Bowl and Canada's Hockey Night in Canada where members of the EBU duke it out by seeing who has the best song.
Past participants have been a motley mixture of serious and wacky. Eurovision's official Youtube has a bunch. Some highlights -
2014: Conchita Wurst represents Austria this year with "Rise Like a Phoenix". Conchita Wurst is the drag alter ego of Tom Neuwirth and has a beard.
2013: Cezar Ouatu represented Romania with "It's My Life". He was appropriately nicknamed the Sparkling Gay Dubstep Vampire for his presence at Eurovision (it is very popular with the LGBT community), his sparkliness, his dark clothes, and the dubstep part of the song.
2012: Buranovskiye Babushki represented Russia with "Party for Everybody". Buranovskiye Babushki are a bunch of grandmothers from Udmurtia. They sang in Udmurt, which is a language related to Hungarian and Finnish .
2010: SunStroke Project and Olia Tira represented Moldova with "Run Away". This act birthed Epic Sax Guy.
2009: Noa and Mira represented Israel with "There Must Be Another Way". It was a trilingual song in Hebrew, Arabic, and English which was both lauded and criticized in Israel for attempting to bring the Israel-Palestine conflict to the Eurovision stage.
2006: Lordi represented Finland with "Hard Rock Hallelujah". This was the year of the Rockening, as heavy metal made its first Eurovision win.
1998: Dana International represented Israel with "Diva". Dana International was Eurovision's first, and to date only, MTF transgender performer. She also won.
1988: Celine Dion represented Switzerland with "Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi". Yes, that Celine Dion. This is how her career got started.
1980, 1987: Johnny Logan represents Ireland with "What's Another Year" and "Hold Me Now", respectively. He is the only act to win Eurovision more than once.
1974: ABBA represents Sweden with "Waterloo". Also, yes, that ABBA. This is how their career got started.
Eurovision is popular outside of Europe; Australia sends people there every year and this year one of their musical acts, Jessica Mauboy, is singing in the second semifinal.
There are a ton of places to watch it if you look - it's on May 6, 8, and 10.