The 50th Eurovision took place in Kyiv on May 21, 2005. Total of 41 countries were to take part but Czech Republic didn't confirm their participation in the end due economical reasons, and Lebanon that was to debut and even chose a song already didn't meet the rules when they were not ready to broadcast the Israeli entry. They were shut out with 3 years penalty. Time will tell if we will ever see them again. A lot of previous winner and participants tried to be there failing to win various national selections: The Olsen Brothers, Johnny Logan as composer, Katrina, Gina G, Nanne Grönvall, Alf Poier, Nusa Derenda and Jahn Teigen for example. Some of them did make it to Kyiv. Selma who scored 2nd place for Iceland maybe wishes now she didn't as she didn't even pass the semifinal despite being one of the favourites. Chiara was there, too, making her previous 3rd place now 2nd and Helena Paparizou who won after being third with Antique a few years earlier. The voting was however rather exciting. First the votes were given from the 15 countries that didn't make the final and Greece was only 9th at the point. Once the final countries started voting she slowly took the lead and won, but with rather low points.
The organization for the Kyiv Eurovision was filled with problems. There were problems with renting the Arena, the tickets didn't sell, the political unstability in Ukraine. Ruslana, who was to be one of the presenters was replaced the last minute and Ukraine's own song was a theme song for the Orange revolution, with a new text forced by EBU though. And the Big4 took the last 4 places. But Greece took a (half-Swedish ) victory after 31 years and 94% of Greeks were watching that....
The organization for the Kyiv Eurovision was filled with problems. There were problems with renting the Arena, the tickets didn't sell, the political unstability in Ukraine. Ruslana, who was to be one of the presenters was replaced the last minute and Ukraine's own song was a theme song for the Orange revolution, with a new text forced by EBU though. And the Big4 took the last 4 places. But Greece took a (half-Swedish ) victory after 31 years and 94% of Greeks were watching that....
Comments