Post by Admin on Mar 20, 2017 19:17:04 GMT
The Eurovision Song Contest 2017 will be the 62nd edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It will take place in the International Exhibition Centre in Kiev, Ukraine, following Ukraine’s victory at the 2016 contest in Stockholm with the song “1944”, written and performed by Jamala. This will be the second time the contest takes place in Kiev, after 2005, and the fourth Eurovision event after hosting the Junior Eurovision Song Contests in 2009 and 2013. The contest is expected to consist of two semi-finals on 9 and 11 May and the final on 13 May 2017.
Forty-three countries will participate in the 2017 contest. Portugal and Romania are to return to the contest, both having been absent from the 2016 edition. After returning in 2016, Bosnia and Herzegovina has withdrawn again due to financial difficulties.
The contest will take place in the International Exhibition Centre in Kiev, following Ukraine’s victory at the 2016 contest with the song “1944”, performed by Jamala. The International Exhibition Centre, which was announced as the host venue on 9 September 2016, has a capacity of approximately 11,000 attendees and is the largest exhibition centre in Kiev. Located in the western portion of Livoberezhna microdistrict, the centre was opened in October 2002, and the head of the centre since its construction was Anatoly Tkachenko.
NTU announced on 22 July that the bids from Dnipro, Kiev and Odessa had been shortlisted for further consideration. The EBU announced on 30 July that the host city would be announced “in due course”, rather than on the previously stated date of 1 August, with Executive Supervisor of the contest Jon Ola Sand stating that the EBU “really want to take the time it takes to come up with the right decision”. The Deputy General Director of NTU, Oleksandr Kharebin, stated on 10 August that the host city would be announced on Ukrainian Independence Day, 24 August. The announcement was later scheduled to take place on 25 August; however, it was postponed at 14:00 EEST, one hour before it was due to take place, with NTU citing the need to further consider some fine details regarding the decision. After several delays in announcing the host city, NTU announced on 8 September that they would be meeting with the Ukrainian Government and the LOC on 9 September and that a press conference to announce the host city was scheduled to take place at 13:00 EEST on the same day from the Government Press Centre in Kiev. Kiev was announced as the host city for the contest with the International Exhibition Centre selected as the venue.
The preliminary dates for the contest were announced on 14 March 2016 at a meeting of Heads of Delegation in Stockholm, with the semi-finals expected to take place on 16 and 18 May and the final on 20 May 2017. These preliminary dates were chosen by the EBU to avoid the contest coinciding with any major television and sporting events scheduled to take place around that time. However, the EBU announced on 24 June that the preliminary dates for the contest had been brought forward a week, with the semi-finals scheduled for 9 and 11 May and the final on 13 May. This was reportedly due to a request from NTU, as the initial preliminary dates conincided with the Remembrance Day for the victims of the Deportation of the Crimean Tatars on 18 May. However, the current preliminary dates coincide with the second leg of the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League semi-finals.