I also attended last night EBU Press Conference.

Confirmed the Semi Final voting went off without a hitch 100%. 3 countries used their backup jury results due to
lack of phone votes. EBU have set a minimum number required for phone votes to count but they will not say what that
minimum is. The countries this applied to were Monaco, Andorra and Albania.

The voting in the Final will include all 39 countries, will start with the losing Semi Finalist in order then the
finalists in order, so Austria then Lithuania and so on till france last.

The Dates for ESC 2006 in Blah Blah Blah country will be Thursday 18th May for the Semi Final and Saturday 20th May
for the final.The limit of 40 countries will still apply in 2006 but will be reviewed after that. Format and numbers.

They will launch an ESC Lottery which will consist of scratch card through each countries main lottery provider.

Some 50th Anniversary Show details were announced.
14 songs will be presented by celebrities/old hosts and performed by appropriate artists.
There will be a 50 piece orchestra and a number of medley tributes put together. Archive material will be shown of
major moments thru the ESC years.
It will be held in the Forum Arena in Copenhagen where Junior Eurovision was held in 2003.
Capacity is 6000 and the show will last 2 hours.
The song will be chosen as follows.
10 songs by the fans on www.eurovision.tv the songs are split into 5 decades and one person nominates 10 songs.
2 songs from each decade. Then the committee will have four additional wild cards to add and will pick big 4
country songs if any of them hasnt already received representation by the fans vote.

By voting you can win prizes. Top prize is a VIP all expenses paid trip to the show for 2.
Also 25 50th Anniversary Books and 50 DVD/CD from 2005.

Ivor Lyttle from OGAE cast the first votes at the live launch of the voting website.

Andrew