Eurovision Song Festival 8

The Eurovision Song Festival 8 will be the 8th edition of the Eurovision Song Festival. It will take place in the Arena Lviv in Lviv, Ukraine. This will be the first time the contest will take place in Ukraine. The contest is expected to consist of two semi-finals on 12 June and the final on 12 June 2018.

On the 23rd of April, the EBO confirmed that a total of 44 countries will be present in the eighth edition of the Eurovision Song Festival.

## Location

### **Bidding phase**

On 24 April 2018, the EBO confirmed that six cities were in the race to host the eighth edition of the Eurovision Song Festival. The host city will be announced on the 23rd of April 2018. The head of the contest, Adéla Bronislava, announced that the host city announcement will take place on 19:00 CET.

All cities were allowed to submit a venue for hosting the contest. The cities had to announce the venue and the capacity for the show. In the end, six cities were submitted to host the contest. The following cities are in the race to host the contest:
  †   Host venue
  ‡   Shortlisted

### **Venue**

Arena Lviv (Ukrainian: Арена Львів) is a football stadium in Lviv, Ukraine. It was one of the eight UEFA Euro 2012 venues, where it hosted three of the group-stage games. According to the official plans, the stadium has a total seating capacity of 34,915. NK Veres Rivne and FC Karpaty Lviv use the stadium for home games.

#### **Home field**

It was the home field of FC Karpaty Lviv in 2011-12. But Karpaty only played five games at it and returned to its original home field due to the lease price. Another club Hoverla Uzhhorod also played a home game at the stadium, due to reconstruction of Avanhard Stadium in Uzhhorod

Due to the conflict in their home city, Shakhtar Donetsk played its home games at the stadium from 2014 until the end of 2016.

#### **Overview**

Construction work began on November 20, 2008 and was completed by October 2011. The opening ceremony took place on 29 October, with a vast theatrical production dedicated to the history of Lviv and with the concert of the pop-star Anastacia. The first football match in the stadium was played on 15 November 2011, between Ukraine and Austria, ending with a score of 2–1. The first player to score a goal in the new stadium was Artem Milevskiy in the 16th minute (the second was an own goal and the third was scored by Marko Dević in the 91st minute).

#### **Construction**

The original architectural firm for the project was Hochtief Construction, which had completed the Dnipro Arena. They made a presentation of their design on May 21, 2007 and proposed the name of Lemberg. The capacity of the stadium was originally planned to be 32,000, at a total cost of 70.4 million euros. It was planned that the stadium would be erected prior to 2010. The Hochtief representatives met with Andriy Sadovy and Myroslav Senyk (the head of the local regional council). Lviv officials claimed that the arena would cost 60 million euros, with 75% of the amount to be paid by an investor and 25% by the city government. In early 2008, Hochtief was replaced by the Austrian company AlpineBau. After almost a year of discussions, no works had begun and by October 10, 2008 AlpineBau had rejected the city's bid of 85 million euros, requesting at least 100 million.

On October 23, 2008, Lviv's administration contacted ISD (Industrial Union of Donets Basin). ISD is a major transnational industrial corporation in Eastern Europe, combining several industries including mining, construction, metallurgy, machine-building, and others. As time was limited, municipal officials held talks with another Austrian architectural company, Albert Wimmer, which designed the Hypo-Arena in Klagenfurt. Together with another local company Arnika, they came up with the design for the Ukrainian stadium. On November 7, the Ministry of Economics appointed the project-construction company Azovinteks as the general contractor which immediately sent about one hundred of its workers, along with equipment, to Lviv. Azovinteks is based in Mariupol and is part of the ISD group.

The website, turnir.com.ua, referencing the declaration of the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers said that in April 2010 the government of Ukraine transferred the stadium into the sphere of control of the Ministry of Sport, Family, and Youth in order to stabilize and accelerate the construction of the stadium. Previously, the stadium was the property of the Lviv communal venture "Directorate for construction of a stadium in Lviv".

On June 23, 2010 the deputy chairman of the Lviv Oblast State Administration (LODA) Volodymyr Hubytsky informed the members of Lviv's council that the financing of Euro-2012 in the city of Lviv had been increased by five billion hryvna (from 5.3 to 10.3 overall). Hubytsky also said the government had confirmed the State Aiming Program for the preparation of the final stage of Euro-2012. The Lviv Oblast was assigned up to 16.4 billion hryvnas to completely cover the construction of the stadium and the city's airport. The head of the oblast administration also stated that rates of construction were increased and by August 30 the stands' carrying structure for the second tier would be installed. Hubytsky said that a consensus was found with the state company "Lviv Armored-Tank maintenance plant" which agreed to surrender part of its territory for the construction of approachable road access and various engineer networks for the stadium.

##### **Construction financing**

The deputy chairman said that 345 million hryvnas were spent on all construction projects in 2010, which was one and a half times more than the previous couple of years (216 million). The state program estimated the financing of all Euro-2012-related projects at 5.7 billion hryvnas, out of which 4 billion would come from the state budget, 1.35 from investors, and the rest .36 billion from the local budget. For the stadium only, the program assigned some 1.65 billion hryvnas, out of which .31 billion (.23 - state, .08 - Lviv) were released at the start of construction and 180 billion in 2010.

## Format

On the 23rd of April, the EBO confirmed that 2 Semi-Finals and the final were scheduled to take place in May. There is a jury and a televote. They both decide 50% of the score. There was also a big 6 pre-qualified to the final. Those countries were the host Ukraine, Greece, Bulgaria, Lithuania, United Kingdom and Serbia.

## Participating countries

Participating countries had until 20 April 2018 to submit their applications for participation in the contest. The EBO announced on 23 April that 44 countries would participate in the contest.

## Results

### **Semi-final 1**

Nineteen countries participated in the first semi-final. The highlighted countries qualified for the final.

### **Semi-final 2**

Nineteen countries participated in the second semi-final. The highlighted countries qualified for the final.

## Other countries

 Andorra - Andorra was about to submit their paperwork necessarily for participating, until the government withdrew the funding for the costs for participating. The government stated that "there were other projects, more needed for the Andorran society, which needed to receive funding.".

 Norway - Norway was submitted to take the place of Sweden in the contest as the 44th country, until Sweden suddenly handed in their paperworks, which are necessary for taking part in the contest.

 Sweden - Sweden was about to withdraw, but then joined this edition last minute.