70th Eurovision Song Contest barrier-free: ORF launches casting for sign performers
On Friday, January 16, 2026, a casting for sign performers from the international deaf community will take place at the ORF media campus in Vienna. Those who are most convincing will perform the songs of the participating acts in International Sign at the Eurovision Song Contest 2026. The song performance is an artistic form of expression where sign language is used as a central means to independently and artistically stage musical content. The Sign Performance has been part of the barrier-free offering at the Eurovision Song Contest since 2015. ORF was the first public broadcaster to produce the songs performed at a song contest with sign performance and was instrumental in establishing this service.
All people who are part of the deaf community are invited to the casting. This includes deaf and hard of hearing people as well as people with cochlear implants. Prerequisites for participation in the casting are experience with one or more national sign languages and International Sign, a high degree of independence and the ability to express oneself visually and to present musical content creatively and precisely. The casting jury is made up of representatives of ORF and deaf associations with expertise in music, sign language, performance and casting procedures.
A convincing application is required to take part in the casting. The application documents must include a short biography, information on previous artistic experiences with sign language, a short letter of motivation, and a video with your own song performance, and should be sent to sign@orf.at from now until December 28, 2025. By January 9, 2025, applicants will be informed about possible participation in the casting.
In several preparatory workshops with experts, the selected sign performers will work on the artistic representation of visual-musical content and professionalize their physical expression. The finished song performances will be pre-produced on ORF and shown in all three live shows of the Eurovision Song Contest on ORF ON and ORF 2 Europe.
Further information can be found at: tv.orf.at/esc26/casting_sign-performing100.html. If you have any questions, please contact the ORF team at sign@orf.at.
(December 10, 2025)