The day has finally arrived and you can feel the excitement in the air; the buzz around the city is fantastic; it's most entertaining to see the hordes of teenage Jedward fans making their way to the Arena today to see the 3rd dress rehearsal. With not that many ballads among the line up, we're in for an entertaining evening!
The 2nd Dress Rehearsal for the final of the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest took place this evening. The jury will be voting on the show tonight. It was also another opportunity for participants and technical aspects to be perfected for the final tomorrow night at 21:00 CET.
After two very exciting semi finals today it was finally time for the 25 finalists first dress rehearsal. Now they need to rise their standards a couple of notches even though many of the artists seemed to save both energy and their voices for tomorrow's big show.
Following on from the first semi-final on Tuesday, tonight, it was the turn of those drawn in the second semi-final to take to the stage and compete for the support of the public and juries for the right to appear in the final on Saturday.
The second semi-final is kicking off in just an hour. Ten more countries will qualify for the final held on Saturday. Here you can see the performances from the dress rehearsal of all 19 acts competing tonight.
The final dress rehearsal of the second semi final started at 15.00 o'clock. It was the last chance for the participants to get everything well prepared for the live show tonight. Just like during the 3rd dress rehearsal of the first semi final, most of the artists wore casual clothes instead of the ones which they will wear during the live show.
The 19 participants in the second semi-final has just been on stage for the second time today. This was the so-called jury final, which is the one the juries base their votes on. The technical problems from the first one had been solved and only one rehearsal is now left until it really counts tomorrow evening.
As always during the last week of Eurovision Song Contest EBU hosted a press conference together with the host broadcaster, this year being the German broadcaster NDR. The two main subjects up for discussion was what has happened so far during this years Eurovision Song Contest and what exciting news we can look forward to in the future.
Today it was time for the contestants of the 2nd semi final to have the first of three dress rehearsals before the live broadcast tomorrow night. They now only have a few more chances to solve possible technical errors and make last improvements on their performances.
After the shocks (Switzerland in) and surprises (Poland out) of the first semi-final, attention now turns to the second semi-final on Thursday. There are nineteen songs vying for the ten available places left in the final on Saturday. What chances does each one have? Read on to find out.
