Eurovision began as a way to test live television across Europe. The European Broadcasting Union was formed in 1950, and its broadcasts over the Eurovision network in the early 1950s, including the 1953 coronation of Elizabeth II, showed what shared transmission could do. In 1955 an EBU committee approved a European song contest, partly based on the Italian Sanremo Music Festival, and the first contest was held in Lugano, Switzerland, in 1956. The competition was meant to encourage original songs as well as to prove that transnational live television could work.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.