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 more countries will rehearse for the first time, these countries are performing in the first half of semi-final two.
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08:45 CET // Today, the second day of rehearsals for the 62nd edition of the Eurovision Song Contest take place in Kyiv, Ukraine. Serbia, Austria, FYR Macedonia and Malta will perform this morning. After a lunch break, the Romania, the Netherlands and Hungary will follow. After a second short break, Denmark and Ireland will rehearse later this afternoon. Once Ireland has 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 makeup 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 morning will be Serbia at 08:00 BST / 15:30 CET / 16:30 local time.
Serbia: First Rehearsal
09:00 CET // Tijana has taken to the stage in Kyiv to rehearse her 2017 Eurovision entry, “In Too Deep”. This is Tijana’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 her staging. After the rehearsal, Tijana and her team will enter the viewing room where they will watch back the performance and make any changes they see fit.
09:05 CET // Tijana is joined on stage by one backing dancer, she is also supported by four experienced backing singers, including one who won with Marija Serifovic in 2007. Dark water backdrop throughout, male dancer makes an appearance in the last minute of the performance.
09:15 CET // Black and white opening has been removed for the second run through more water inspired backdrop. This is very reminiscent of Malta last year in Stockholm in a sense.
09:28 CET // Tijana stands on a giant whirlpool displayed on the floor LED, the dancers don’t join her until midway through the performance. Overall it’s a good opening maybe lacking the wow factor you’d expect, but solid nevertheless.
Austria: First Rehearsal
09:45 CET // Nathan Trent is up on stage now for Austria with “Running On Air”. Nathan is supported by three backing vocalists, including one singer who competed in last year’s national final. Nathan is oozing charm, he is wearing trainers that have wings, which connects back to the song title. This is a really solid performance from Austria.
09:57 CET // Nathan is sitting on a crescent moon, Austria seems to have sussed in the past two years that charisma sells a song. A platform at the end of the performance allows Nathan to “Walk on Air”. The LED back screen and stage floor display clouds that ‘lift’ Nathan. Backing singers come out at the end of the performance.
10:12 CET // Fog has now been introduced onto the stage. This is a really solid performance all round, this should be getting through to the Saturday night.
FYR Macedonia: First Rehearsal
10:15 CET // Jana from FYR Macedonia is next, hoping to bring her country back to the Eurovision Song Contest finals this year. 23-year-old Jana was internally selected to compete in this year’s contest, having previously taken part in Macedonian Idol. Whether she will “Dance Alone” in Ukraine is yet to be seen.
10:25 CET // FYR Macedonia’s performance has been choreographed by Ambra Succi, who also choreographed “Euphoria” by Loreen, that won Eurovision for Sweden back in 2012. Ambra has been working in Skopje with Jana Burceska working on the routine for the Macedonian entry “Dance Alone”. Ambra also choreographed and performed in the “Dance Alone” music video. Jana performs alone on stage.
“She is young, very sophisticated, I want to present her in the best way. She has sexy long legs and I need to use that in the staging. She has confidence, she is a strong and independent woman”
10:29 CET // Jana’s staging doesn’t resemble the music video in the slightest. The LED back board is red, blue, white and black. The lighting is bright white, while the stage structure is highlighted in purple. Jana’s outfit is similar to the one in the music video.
10:37 CET // Stage presence in the second run through was stronger, the vocals were better and the performance stood out more.
10:48 CET // That’s the third of FYR Macedonia’s run throughs in today’s rehearsals. The opinion on this one’s fairly split with some saying the performance is perfect as-is, others saying the lack of dancers is a problem. Next to perform is Malta, Claudia is the last artist to perform before the lunch break.
Malta: First Rehearsal
11:02 CET // It’s Claudia Faniello’s year as she represents her home country for the first time after a total of eleven attempts. With the return of 100% televote to the Maltese final, Claudia will finally be taking to the Eurovision stage. Eurovision runs in her family, with her brother Fabrizio having already competed in the contest in 2001 and 2006. She will be performing “Breathlessly” in the second semi-final.
11:10 CET // Claudia uses the chandelier technology in a new way during her performance. A simple performance with Claudia in a full-length white dress, images of herself on the backdrop. This is all about the vocals and the juries.
11:20 CET // There’s a feeling around the press centre that Malta can make it back through to the final.
11:30 CET // We’re gonna leave it there, that’s the morning’s rehearsals, join us from 12:30 CET for the next three rehearsals.
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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.
[tw-accordion class=””] [tw-accordion-section title=”Eurovision: How the Results Are Generated”] 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.[/tw-accordion-section] [/tw-accordion]
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 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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