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The Grand Final of the 62nd Eurovision Song Contest will take place on May 13th in the International Exhibition Centre of Kyiv, Ukraine. Forty-two artists will take to the stage over three nights to perform their contributions for the contest, fighting to become the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2017. Over the next week, all of the artists will have the chance to rehearse on stage and make any last minute changes to their performance before the live broadcasts. Today, nine countries will rehearse for the first time.


⭕ LIVE COVERAGE | Refresh at regular intervals for the latest developments.


12:10 CET // Today, the first rehearsals for the 62nd edition of the Eurovision Song Contest take place in Kyiv, Ukraine. Sweden, Georgia, Australia and Albania have performed this morning, now after a lunch break, Belgium Montenegro and Finland will follow. After a second short break, Azerbaijan and Portugal will rehearse later this afternoon. Once Portugal have finished on stage, the team in the arena will break for an evening meal before beginning lighting tests. The presenters will rehearse during this time, as will interval acts. All rehearsals are followed by make up consultations, a chance to view the performance in the ‘Viewing Room’ to make changes, and a press conference. Press conferences will take place 2h20m after the end of the on-stage rehearsal, lasting twenty minutes. All artists will spend six hours in the building. The first to perform this afternoon will be Blanche at 11:40 BST / 12:40 CET / 13:00 local time.

Belgium: First Rehearsal

12:10 CET // It is currently lunch we are just awaiting the first rehearsal from Belgium in 30 minutes time.

12:36 CET // Blanche has taken to the stage in Kyiv to rehearse her 2017 Eurovision entry, “City Lights”. This is Blanche’s first time in the Exhibition Centre; she and her delegation will be checking the sound, lighting and prop positioning. Camera angles will also be tested. This is the first time we’ll get to see Blanche’s staging. After the rehearsal, Blanche and her team will enter the viewing room where they will watch back the performance and make any changes they see fit.

12:43 CET // Blanche has a very simple performance, and is alone on stage, and she is the main focus of the cameras. There is white lighting effects. Lots of hand choreography.

13:00 CET // There is a delay to the start of Blanche’s second run through. We do not know the reason for the delay at this time.

13:11 CET // Blanche was not in her stage outfit. Reports suggest she appeared very nervous and this affected her vocal performance. The floor has been used to produce some good visuals to go along with the lighting.

13:12 CET // Belgium have finished their three rehearsals. There are comments suggesting Belgium may not qualify for the final.

 

Montenegro: First Rehearsal

13:31 CET // Montenegro have begun their first rehearsal as Slavko takes to the stage.

13:34 CET // Everything we expected. A colourful performance to match a colourful song and personality. Bright lights, vivid backing visuals. Of course, the ponytail is there.

13:45 CET // There are two giant digital Slavko’s dancing on the large screen behind the stage. Aside from this, Slavko is alone on stage, wearing some very sparkly trousers. A very upbeat and lively performance.

13:52 CET // Mainly positive reactions from Montenegro’s rehearsals.

Finland: First Rehearsal

13:53 CET // Lasse and Leena of the duo Norma John have taken to the stage for Finland’s first rehearsal. A big change in song following on from Montenegro.

13:56 CET // The first run through has finished. Similar to the National Final performance. Lots of blue lighting changing to red as the performance progresses.

14:09 CET // The instrumental section camerawork focuses on Lasse playing the piano. The floor visuals are like water, perhaps relating to the music videos. Leena is wearing the same black dress she work in UMK.

14:17 CET // Fantastic live vocals from Leena, a beautifully haunting performance matched with appropriate staging. A strong entry from Finland this year reflected in their excellent rehearsal.

14:20 CET //  Join us from 15:00 CET on Eurovoix.com as Azerbaijan and Portgual take to the stage for the first time this year.

 


⭕ Live Blog Has Now Ended

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Stage Design of the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest, Kyiv, Ukraine
Stage Design of the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest, Kyiv, Ukraine

About the Eurovision Song Contest 2017

The Eurovision Song Contest 2017 will be the 62nd edition of the contest. It is to take place in the International Exhibition Centre in Kyiv, Ukraine. This is following the Ukrainian victory at the 2016 contest, in which Jamala won with the song “1944”, which was performed in Crimean Tatar and English. This is the second time that the contest will be held in Kyiv, the first being in 2005. The contest will consist of two semi-finals on the 9th and 11th of May, and the Grand Final on 13th May 2017.

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The winner will be selected in part by public voting on the night, and in part by a professional jury the day before. At last year’s contest in Stockholm, a new voting system (similar to that of Melodifestivalen) was introduced in which the televote and jury vote were split in order to create a more tense atmosphere and exciting end to the show. In previous years, the spokespersons from across Europe would reveal their nation’s top ten songs, announced from 1 point up to 7, followed by the famous 8,10 and 12 points. These results were the combined opinion of the voting public and professional jury. Each country’s points would be combined to reach a final result. Now, however, the spokespersons only reveal the top ten of the national jury, leaving the public vote until the end of the show. The public votes are assigned points from 1-8,10 and 12, before being added together to create a ‘pot’ of results. The public vote is now announced collectively awarding anywhere from ‘nil points’ to a maximum of 504 points, a total of 2436 points will be awarded by the public in May, as will 2436 points from the jury. The highest possible score any country could receive is 1008 points, on the basis that every country’s public vote and jury vote awarded the same nation 12 points.
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How You Can Follow This Year’s Contest

Over the next two weeks we’ll be bringing you live blogs from all of the rehearsals at this year’s contest, kicking off at 09:00 CET this morning, with Robin Bengtsson from Sweden. Live blogs will keep you up to date with all of the rehearsals, the staging and the first impressions from Kyiv.

We’ll bring you up to date news from all of the latest goings on at the contest, expect all the details about the spokespersons, artists and the host city itself.

On May 7 our live commentary of the opening ceremony will return as well, with a number of our writers guiding you through the artists, songs and what to expect from the shows.

This year also sees Eurovoix joining forces with escXtra to bring you XtraVoix. XtraVoix is a daily podcast featuring writers from both sites who couldn’t make it out to Ukraine for the contest, we’ll give you our immediate thoughts on all the goings on.


To get the most out of our coverage of this year’s contest in Ukraine, make sure to follow us on all of our social media platforms. We’ll be running some special contests to win one-off prizes from some of these artists, so you need to pay close attention.

  • Like us on Facebook
  • Get all of the news straight to you Twitter feed by following Eurovoix
  • Check out snippets of the goings on in Kyiv and more unique content on Twitter by following Eurovoix Moments
  • Who doesn’t love a nice picture, we’ll be posting summaries of the news and ourselves in Kyiv on Instagram

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