Yesterday’s most interesting news was delivered by Svantes Stockselius, the head of the Eurovision Song Contest within the European Broadcasting Union – EBU: “Next year’s Eurovision Song Contest will take place between 10 and 12 May”.

Mr Stockselius revealed this during yesterday’s press conference held by EBU in preparation for tonight’s semi-final.

Meanwhile, two general dress rehearsals of the semi-final took place at the OAKA stadium today. The first general rehearsal took place yesterday afternoon. The next general dress rehearsal run through took place last night. This last rehearsal was recorded by the Greek broadcaster ERT for ‘security and safety measures’ – which include technical faults which might crop up during tonight’s show or unexpected moves from particular singers who might jeopardise the whole show.

The semi-final show opens with a group of ancient Greek statues singing the song Welcome to the party, one of Anna Vissi’s entries for the Greek national final. From there, it switches to the Eurovision classics Volare, L’amour est blu, Save your kisses, Making your mind up, A-ba-ni-bi, Dschinghis khan, Diva, Waterloo, Wild dances, My number one and finally Love shine a light, performed by the hosts of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest – the Greeks Maria Menounos and Sakis Rouvas (Greece 2004).

The songs which had the largest applause in the hall and which seem most likely to qualify for Saturday’s final are the ones from Belgium (Kate Ryan), Ireland (Bryan Kennedy), Cyprus (Annet Artani), Poland (Ich Troje) Russia (Dima Biland), Finland (Lordi), Sweden (Carola), Estonia (Sandra), Bosnia-Herzegovina (Hari Mata Hari) and Iceland (Sandra Night).

And what about the favourites?

Nothing changed after yesterday’s rehearsal by the Maltese team. Malta is still anchored at spot number 24 in the Bestbettings chart.

Bestbettings.com groups the results of the leading 16 betting agencies worldwide. A better position is enjoyed by Switzerland, with Maltese singer Keith Camilleri forming part of the group of singers, which are at spot number 15.

Greece, Sweden, Romania, Bosnia&Herzegovina and Finland are currently in the top-5. Greek star Anna Vissi strengthened her position as the leader of the pack since the opening of this Eurovision-season!

Chairperson of the Maltasong board, Robert Abela, said that his board did whatever possible to give the needed ‘push’ to Malta’s representatives Fabrizio Faniello. He travelled to 20 countries – a record for a Maltese Eurovision related promotional tour. It is now up to Fabrizio and his backing singers and dancers to lift Malta’s chances on the big night with a strong and flawless performance! Fabrizio Faniello will return to the stage tomorrow for the last run-throughs, one at 2pm and the final one for the day at 9pm. We all hope that things will start looking brighter for the Maltese team after these two performances, before the final one on Saturday night.

Right after Thursday’s semifinal show all the fans and accredited journalists will gather at the Euroclub where the Maltese DJ Charlo (member of OGAE Malta) will play his Eurovision set to the party atmosphere.

This was made possible thanks to OGAE MALTA, the official Eurovision fan club in Malta, and OGAE International.

DJ Charlo was asked to be the official DJ during the Russian Delegation’s party held last Tuesday night at the Euroclub.