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These photos posted by Head of Production Ola Melzig in his annual Eurovision Diary show how the stage is taking shape inside the Altice Arena. The first stand-in rehearsals start next week, followed by the participants' rehearsals starting on 29 April.

For today's standards, I guess they are... Back in 2016, Danish singer Medina - then aged 33 - received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Danish Music Awards, just 10 years after the release after her debut album and 8 years after her mainstream breakthrough

Wow! During the Grand Final, last year's winner Salvador Sobral will perform on stage with Caetano Veloso

First live performance of the Russian entry

In Denmark it still is. Most professional full-time musicians in Denmark tour (almost) every year. If you're among the most popular Danish recording artists, royalties from streaming and music sales will typically account for 15-20 % of your total earnings if you write your own songs.

The semifinal running orders have been announced: SEMIFINAL 1 Azerbaijan Iceland Albania Belgium Czech Republic Lithuania Israel Belarus Estonia Bulgaria Macedonia Croatia Austria Greece Finland Armenia Switzerland Ireland Cyprus SEMIFINAL 2 Norway Romania Serbia San Marino Denmark Russia Moldova Netherlands Australia Georgia Poland Malta Hungary Latvia Sweden Montenegro Slovenia Ukraine Here are the official recaps in running order:

Semifinal 1 will be a bloodbath

Official recap of the 6 pre-qualified finalists:

The Albanian entry was 1 ½ minutes too long in its original version. Here's the Eurovision version, which is a new recording, not just an edit of the original:

The commercially released version features some high-pitched vocal samples aka "chipmunk vocals", most prominently heard in the intro. For the Eurovision live shows, all "chipmunk" samples were removed from the mix. A third version, which was released only as a promo, keeps the "chipmunks" in the intro, but removes them from the instrumental break around the 2:00 mark.

The deadline to submit the Eurovision versions of the entries to the EBU was 12 March. However, they may be released to the public at a later date - or not at all. For instance, the Eurovision version of Bulgaria's 2016 entry was created specifically for the Eurovision live shows and remains unreleased.

We now know all 43 competing entries in this year's Eurovision Song Contest, as Georgia has released its entry:

Israel already won 3 times

Considering what else is on offer this year, I think Bulgaria might just win IF they deliver a strong live performance, both vocally and visually.. Equinox consists of Bulgarian singers Zhana Bergendorff, Georgi Simeonov (aka JJ) and Vladimir Mihaylov, as well as US singers Johnny Manuel and Trey Campbell. The song was co-written by group member Trey Campbell, along with Borislav Milanov, Joacim Persson & Dag Lundberg.

Lithuania chose its entry late last night Bulgaria's entry to be revealed in a few minutes