Remarkably in an era when performers are media-trained into utter blandness, Pravi is an unabashed activist for women’s rights and has been forthcoming about her experience with domestic violence.

But in case you were wondering if there really are invisible people dancing around in white pants, this what Greece looked like in the arena, using a ’green screen:

Frank Lochthove, Germany

Mr. Lochthove, 45, recalled how Germany’s hosting the soccer World Cup finals in 2006 had given it the opportunity to shed a postwar suspicion of flags and national pride to cheer on the national team. But for Mr. Lochthove, the most important competition was the 2010 Eurovision, held in Oslo, which the German singer Lena won. “She managed to cast a spell on the whole audience,” he said.

James Sheen, Britain

Mr. Sheen said he held his first Eurovision party in 1991, and continued to host parties for the next 20 years. Each time, the shindigs grew more elaborate as he added score sheets, themed food, colored spotlights, a sound system and a smoke machine.

In 2011, Mr. Sheen drove to Düsseldorf, Germany, to be in the audience for the first time. While the parties were dear to him, nothing beat the thrill of the real thing, he said.

Maria Bresic, Australia

When Ms. Bresic was growing up in the 1970s in the western suburbs of Sydney, she knew about the Eurovision Song Contest from Croatian-language radio and from her parents’ friends.

Her parents had come from Croatian and the way they watched the contest in the 1980s was influenced by the complicated politics of the Balkans at the time.

“Mum and Dad wouldn’t be interested in watching any of the performances by certain countries,” Ms. Bresic said. When Yugoslavia won the contest in 1989, “My parents were outraged,” she said, because, in their mind, the winning band, Riva, should have been considered Croatian, not Yugoslav.

Ricardo Mohammed, United States

Mr. Mohammed has a singular way of keeping track of time. Asked when he started his Eurovision viewing party at Hardware, a gay bar in Hell’s Kitchen, New York, he replied, “Emmelie de Forest won that year.” (For the uninitiated, that would be 2013.) He also remembered a trip to London, “the year Nicki French represented England” (otherwise known as 2000).

Mr. Mohammed, a.k.a. D.J. ohRicky, discovered Eurovision as a child in his native Trinidad, via British broadcasts. He said the closest analogy for the contest was Broadway. “Those fans know the statistics, like how many Tonys someone won,” he said. “It’s the same for Eurovision die-hards: They know the last time a country won, who wrote a particular song.”

Britain has performed poorly at almost every Eurovision since it last won in 1997 (thanks to Katrina and the Wave’s “Love Shine a Light”). The only exception was Jade Ewen’s “It’s My Time” in 2009, a theatrical ballad written by Andrew Lloyd Webber: That came in fifth.

Why does Britain do so badly? Commentators often claim it’s because Europeans have long hated Britain’s lack of commitment to the European Union, something confirmed in 2016 when the British public voted for Brexit.

But the reality is the British entries normally just aren’t very good.

Newman’s song isn’t bad, but his performance tonight isn’t exciting enough. He’s singing while doing dad dancing between two huge model trumpets. To win Eurovision, you need to do more than dad dance while standing between two huge model trumpets.

Australia, a country mad for pop music (it was an early ABBA adopter) has long broadcast Eurovision and, in 2015, it finally landed a one-time-only invitation. Somehow Australia turned into the guest that wouldn’t leave. Not only is it still there, but it placed second in 2016 — these guys are in it to win it, eventually. Sadly it won’t do it this year, as its entry, Montaigne, didn’t make it out of the elimination round and isn’t in today’s grand final.

It’s a great start for the contest, in my opinion and could easily be a Lady Gaga hit. But opening songs never win Eurovision, so this probably won’t either!

More than 3,500 mainly Dutch fans were in to see the show, while journalists, some 400 of them, have been tucked away in a dark, rather depressing conference hall, where they can follow the event on four large screens.

Inside, people were filled with exuberance, partly because the show was going on after a year’s hiatus, and partly because it just felt so good to be out of lockdown. The costumes were colorful: Near me, two men were wearing orange tuxedos and another man wore a British flag as a cape.

Yet some of the reporters working for specialist Eurovision blogs and other outlets told me the setup that kept them away from the crowds made them sad. “Eurovision is about bringing people together, but they are forced to keep people apart,” said William Lee Adams of Wiwibloggs. “I’ll gladly wear a military grade face mask, if I can be among the singers and the public.”

I decided not to miss out on the live event. So I found myself at 10 a.m. this morning standing in the rain on a drab field outside of the city of Lisse for my Covid test. In hand, I had my ticket, which cost a mere €650, or about $790.

Yes, it is — a real thing that has been drawing hundreds of millions of viewers since 1956. But since the contest is not usually broadcast in the United States (the cable network Logo last had the rights in 2018), few knew of its existence, let alone what it’s all about.

The second-most-common American reaction to the movie’s Belarusian horror rockers and bare-chested Russian crooners seemed to be: “OK, but they must have exaggerated it.”

Well, no, they didn’t — “Fire Saga” eerily captures Eurovision’s most demented aspects, especially its signature unselfconscious reveling in over-the-top theatrics. Ferrell (whose wife is from Eurovision-crazy Sweden) pulled off a spot-on satire that eschews condescension: The film doesn’t laugh at the contest or its fans, but with them. And like many of the acts from the real competition, the songs from the movie are infernally catchy: “Husavik,” the lead number in “Fire Saga,” was nominated for an Academy Award.

The entrant facing the biggest challenge in capturing last year’s magic is Dadi Freyr, a singer performing with the band Gagnamagnid, which is Iceland’s entry. Last year, he was a favorite to win with “Think About Things,” a catchy disco number about Freyr’s newborn child.

The band’s entry this year is another fun track called “10 Years.” Freyr said he wanted to keep the track similar in style to “Think About Things,” since Icelanders had voted for a disco tune to represent them at the competition. It took 12 attempts to come up with a new song he liked, he added.

Jeangu Macrooy, the Netherlands’ entry, said he also struggled. “I was getting no inspiration — I was just sitting inside,” he said.

Then, in December, a host of thoughts and feelings around the police killing of George Floyd and the subsequent resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement started bubbling up inside him, he said.

Soon he conjured the lyrics to “Birth of a New Age,” an uplifting gospel-inspired track: “They tried to drain you of your faith / But you are the rage that melts the chains.”

Macrooy said he hoped it would speak to everyone standing up for their rights, whether people of color, L.G.B.T.Q. people or members of other marginalized groups.

But that clearly wasn’t enough.

Last Saturday, a member of Poland’s delegation tested positive for the virus. Last Sunday, so did a member of Iceland’s entry. They were staying in the same hotel.

The news about Iceland was a particular blow for Eurovision fans, as Dadi Freyr, who is representing the country with the band Gagnamagnid, was among the favorites to win.

So what happens now? Well, fortunately, Iceland will still appear. The band managed to perform at a dress rehearsal on the Rotterdam stage before the positive test, so footage of that will be shown tonight.

The pandemic might also be influencing some of the lyrics we hear tonight. Lithuania’s entry, “Discotheque” by The Roop, is all about dancing alone. (“There’s no one here and I don’t care / I feel it’s safe to dance alone,” it goes) — something we’ve all had to do over the past year.

Many of the returning acts have switched from emotional ballads to upbeat numbers to give viewers a break from feeling maudlin.

“I was like, ‘I need something that will make the world feel good again,’” Destiny, who is representing Malta, told me recently by phone. “I wanted a song that when you listen to it you’d be like, ‘Wow, let’s leave Covid behind for three minutes.”

Here’s her entry, “Je Me Casse.” I’ll leave it to you to decide if it makes you forget about the pandemic.

You can also watch it on the Swedish streaming service SVT Play, which is allowing anyone in the world to stream the final for free via their website.

More recently, in 2014, Conchita Wurst became one of the world’s most famous drag artists, after winning for Austria with the soaring “Rise Like a Phoenix.”

Even if the music is not to your taste, Eurovision is always a spectacle, with outrageous costumes, bizarre dance routines and a host of pyrotechnics to secure the votes of an audience watching at home.

More seriously, it’s also occasionally a showcase for social and political commentary.

So who’s in the running to win? Here’s our guide to six of the favorites, including Italy’s hard-rocking Maneskin and Go_A, a folk-techno act from Ukraine. There is even an American entrant this year, the rapper Flo Rida taking part for San Marino.

The show begins at 3 p.m. E.S.T. and we’ll be bringing you live updates from the contest — with some expert commentary and reports from the scene in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.