Sweden’s Robin Bengtsson, as known for weeks, begins his performance off stage, behind the exhibition centre hall. The running machines are present just as before and the dancers on the running machines are all backing singers. Unexpectedly, the back wall LED projections have been altered significantly since Melodifestivalen. Robin now walks through a neon valley in shades of pink, purple and blue – in keeping with his new mauve suit and deep purple tie. In Melodifestivalen earlier this season, all of the backing dancers wore charcoal grey suits and black turtlenecks, these have now been switched for matching mauve suits and plain white turtlenecks.
“There’s a lot of things to take in but so far everything is looking really nice”
– Robin Bengtsson, Sweden
Today’s second run through see’s no change, the performance is just as slick as before. Heavily rehearsed with little to go wrong, Sweden’s secured their place in the final with another pitch-perfect performance, quite possibly sailing into the top five.
Earlier this month it was also announced that Edward af Sillén will be joined by Måns Zelmerlöw as the commentary team for Sweden in Ukraine. This is the third year that Måns Zelmerlöw has been involved in Eurovision; in 2015 he won the contest in Vienna, before going on to co-host with Petra Mede last year in Stockholm. It was also made clear last month that Wiktoria will announce the results of the Swedish jury in the Grand Final of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. Wiktoria competed in Melodifestivalen in 2016 and 2017. This year she was the favourite to win the contest with “As I Lay Me Down”, in the final she received 1,474,526 votes from the public coming in first place and giving her 51 points, but coming eighth with the international juries scoring 29 points. Despite not winning Melodifestivalen, the song went on to reach number two in the Swedish charts and lasted several weeks at number one in the Swedish Spotify charts.
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