The 2019 Eurovision Song Contest officially started on Sunday in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv.

Axar.az reports citing European media that, the 41 contestants walked along the orange carpet laid out in Habima Square in the heart of the city.

Throughout the year activists around the world including over 150 artists collected signatures and distributed brochures to boycott the contest.

The Eurovision contest, which will be held this year in Tel Aviv from May 14 to 18, is an international music competition organized by the European Broadcasting Union since 1956.

It is the world’s largest non-sporting event in terms of viewership, typically drawing hundreds of millions of viewers from across the globe.