From Portugal to Israel: This week, both the Portuguese and Israeli teams have met up at the EBU headquarters in Geneva, in order to official close the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest and kick off preparations for the 2019 competition in Israel.

The Eurovision Reference Group and members from both the 2018 host broadcaster – RTP (Portugal) – and the upcoming host broadcaster – KAN (Israel) – are currently in the Swiss city of Geneva in order to finalise this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon, going on to officially kick off preparations for the 2019 competition in Israel.

Yesterday saw the team from RTP and the Reference Group coming together for a debrief of the 2018 competition, with the first ever Portuguese-hosted competition officially coming to an end.

As we wave goodbye to Lisbon and Portugal, it’s time to say hello to the forthcoming host country of Israel, whose preparations for the 2019 event have now gotten underway.

KAN and EBU members meet in Geneva

Following yesterday’s Eurovision 2018 closure, today the representatives from the Israeli public broadcaster – KAN – met with the members from the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), as well as the event partners and the Reference Group at the EBU headquarters for their initial talks on the 2019 competition.

As part of their initial talks, all sides met to discuss and establish a timetable of key milestones for Eurovision 2019.

RTP and KAN representatives united at today’s meeting, with members from RTP officially providing the extensive handover to the new host broadcaster KAN.

With preparations now official underway with the EBU and KAN for Eurovision 2019, a decision on the official host city for the competition will be determined the traditional way, through an official bidding process.

It is expected that a total of 4 proposals will be presented as bids to host the 2019 competition – Eilat, Haifa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv – with a decision on the official host city along with the 2 semi-final and Grand Final dates expected to be determined by September this year.