The upcoming two days, all delegation heads for the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest meet in Istanbul, together with the organisation team of the Turkish broadcaster TRT and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). One of the issues is the draw for running order!
The draw for the 22 countries participating in the qualifier round of the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest takes place as usual.
The draw for the final is a different story. The 24 positions will be filled up with the 14 countries as well as 10 fictive empty places. At the end of the qualifier round, these 10 positions will be filled up with the countries that ended among the top-10 during a short draw. An example of how this might go: one of the hosts draws an enveloppe, opens it and says: “Latvia ended up among the first 10 and participates as 14th in the final”, when the 14th place is an empty field in the draw for the final.
