The Eurovision Song Contest 1994 was the 39th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, held on 30 April 1994 at the Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland, and presented by Cynthia Ní Mhurchú and Gerry Ryan. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Radio Telefís Éireann (RTÉ), who staged the event after winning the 1993 contest for Ireland with the song "In Your Eyes" sung by Niamh Kavanagh and written by Jimmy Walsh. It was the first time that any country had hosted two successive editions of the contest, following the previous year's contest held in Millstreet.

Broadcasters from twenty-five countries participated in the contest, which for the first time featured a relegation system to reduce the number of interested participants. Seven new countries participated in the event, with entries from Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia and Slovakia featuring for the first time. However, Belgium, Denmark, Israel, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Turkey were unable to compete due to the new relegation rules as the lowest-scoring countries at the previous event, whereas Italy decided against participating by choice.

For the third time in a row, Ireland won the contest with the song "Rock 'n' Roll Kids", written by Brendan Graham and performed by Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan. Never before had a country won three times in a row in the history of the contest; at the same time, it was also a record sixth win, cementing Ireland as the country with the most wins in Eurovision history up till that point. Poland, Germany, Hungary, and Malta rounded out the top five positions, with Poland achieving the most successful result for a début entry in the contest's history.

The 1994 contest also featured the first appearance of Riverdance. Originally a seven-minute performance of traditional Irish and modern music, choral singing and Irish dancing featured as part of the contest's interval act, it was subsequently developed into a full stage show which has since become a worldwide phenomenon and catapulted the careers of its lead dancers Jean Butler and Michael Flatley.

The 1994 contest took place in Dublin, Ireland, following the country's victory at the 1993 edition with the song "In Your Eyes", performed by Niamh Kavanagh and written by Jimmy Walsh. It was the fifth time that Ireland had hosted the contest, following the 1971, 1981 and 1988 events also held in Dublin, and the previous year's event held in Millstreet. Ireland thus became the first country to host two successive contests.

The selected venue was the Point Theatre, a concert and events venue located among the Dublin Docklands and originally built as a train depot and warehouse to serve the nearby port. Opened as a music venue in 1988, it was closed for redevelopment and expansion in 2008 and is now known as the 3Arena. At the time of the contest, the arena could seat around 3,200 audience members.

Twenty-five countries were permitted to participate in the contest. As the number of countries interested in participating in the contest grew, and following the use of a qualifying round in the previous year's event, a relegation system was introduced to the contest for the first time, which would prevent the lowest-scoring countries from the previous year's event from participating in the subsequent contest. In the summer of 1993 the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) confirmed that the seven lowest-scoring countries in the 1993 event would be barred from entering the 1994 contest, to make way for seven countries which would participate for the first time. As a result, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Israel, Luxembourg, Slovenia, and Turkey were unable to enter the contest, and in the contest's largest single expansion of new participating countries since the first edition in 1956, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, and Slovakia made their début appearances. Estonia, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia had all previously participated in the 1993 qualifying round Kvalifikacija za Millstreet. Belgium thus failed to participate in the contest for the first time, leaving Germany and Switzerland as the only countries to have competed in every edition of the contest so far. Later in 1993 Italy's broadcaster RAI subsequently announced that it would not participate in the event, likely due to a lack of interest in the event among the Italian public and concerns within the broadcaster at the costs of staging the contest in the event that Italy won; this led to Cyprus being readmitted as the relegated country with the best result at the 1993 contest.

Four performers who had competed in previous editions of contests featured among the participating artists at this year's event: Marie Bergman, representing Sweden with Roger Pontare, had been a member of the group Family Four that had represented the country in the 1971 and 1972 contests; Cyprus's Evridiki made a second appearance in the contest, following her entry at the 1992 event; Sigga returned to the contest for Iceland for a third time, having previously competed as part of Stjórnin in 1990 and Heart 2 Heart in 1992; and Elisabeth Andreasson, competing in this event with Jan Werner Danielsen for Norway, also participated for the third time, having been a member of the group Chips, which represented Sweden in 1982, and Bobbysocks!, which had represented Norway and were the winners of the 1985 contest. A number of artists which had previously competed in the contest also returned as backing performers: Rhonda Heath, who was a member of the group Silver Convention that had represented Germany in the 1977 contest, performed as a backing singer for the German entry Mekado; and Eyjólfur Kristjánsson [is], who represented Iceland at the 1991 contest alongside Stefán Hilmarsson [is], returned as a backing singer for Sigga. Additionally, having supported Malta's William Mangion as backing performers in the previous year's event, Moira Stafrace and Christopher Scicluna returned to the Eurovision stage as the country's entrants at this year's contest.