Croat broadcaster HRT has received more than 250 entries to the preselections of Dora 2003, which has been decided to take place in the coastal city Opatija, the traditional Dora city where the event has been organised seven times before.

Earlier, esctoday.com reported that HRT would combine three major events to be held on the same stage in a period of ten days. The primary aim is to reduce costs. Two cities were under consideration, Opatija and Pula. HRT finally decided to organise the events under two huge tents in the so-called “queen of Croatian tourism”, better known as Opatija (pictured), a city of 15 000 inhabitants in the north of the country. The city hosted the Croatian national final between 1993 and 1998, as well as in 2000.

Almost ten per cent of the submitted songs will reach one of the two semi finals to take place on 7 and 8 March. The final itself will be broadcast on 9 March. The HRT jury, consisting of twelve members, will start the work of selecting the lucky 24 entries on Monday, 27 January. The hosts of the event will be Dusko Curlic, for second consecutive year, and Danijela Trbovic Vlajki.

HRT has launched its official Dora 2003 website, but so far its pretty empty.