For once, the orchestra returns to the Eurovision Song Contest! Music for the 50th anniversary show in Copenhagen, will be played by a live orchestra. The producer of the show said that on a press conference of the European Broadcasting Union.
Eurovision Song Contest supervisor Svante Stockselius also announced that last night's televoting went 100% correct. A representative of Ernst & Young did all possible checks and came to the conclusion that there are no errors in the televoting.
On the press conference, it was announced that 10 of the 14 songs for the 50th anniversary show can be selected by the fans, through eurovision.tv. The other 4 songs will be chosen by an internal commission and, if the other 10 do not cover the BigFour, these wildcards will be covered by songs from the BigFour countries. Remarkable, as the BBC (United Kingdom) does not want to broadcast the show. One of the present journalists asked Stockselius about it and he replied: “We hope that we can still convince the BBC to broadcast the show”.
Also, the preliminary dates for the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest were given, no matter where it takes place:
Eurovision Song Contest 2006
Semifinal on 18th May, 2006
Final on 20th May, 2006
A couple of other news items emerged from the press conference:
The maximum number of entrants will be 40 for the forseeable future, despite news of several more countries, which want to participate.
The official DVD will not contain any commentaries.
There are plans to include a special Lottery, using scratchcards through state run lotteries.
Special guests to launch the voting in the final, in the same way as the Olympics has, who will light the flame?. This year it is the Ukrainian boxing champions, the Klitschko brothers.
Plans to make the Eurovision Village idea a permanent feature each year.
