The third dress rehearsal has just finished, and the presenting still does not seem to be quite perfect — nor do the cues for the greenroom interviews.

Meltem Cumbul and Korhan Abay’s script seems to be constantly changing from rehearsal to rehearsal. In the previous two rehearsals they had interviewed Sakis from Greece as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Deen. In this rehearsal the Swiss gave a performance of Stand by me, as well as interviews with the Netherlands, Serbia & Montengero and Bosnia-Herzegovina once again. However, this constant change seems to be causing many problems. As the presenters dart from one end to the other the participants are left unsure of what is going on, and the interviews feel amateur.

As well as this, the presenters forgot Sweden when going through the line-up for Saturday, came on too early when acts were leaving the stage, and seemed generally bewildered. The director has tried to sort this out by cutting straight to the greenroom instead of having one presenter on stage and one backstage as before. However, it is still causing problems. The language is also proving to be of difficulty as the English is becoming increasingly hard to understand, leaving the audience unamused by the jokes.

Other than this the actual acts on stage appeared to go well. Greece received the usual applause, as did the Ukraine and Serbia-Montenegro. A large Macedonian crowd backed on the confident Toše and gave him great applause, and Bosnia-Herzegovina also proved to be a favourite with the crowd. Along with these Slovenia and the Netherlands also had a good performance. Lisa Andreas from Cyprus seemed to be a little more withdrawn and her vocal not as strong as usual. She left the stage straight after her performance. It appears that many previously less favoured nations are creeping out of the woodwork and really going for it as the semifinal gets nearer.

There is now under five hours to go before the first semifinal ever takes place.