UK band Blue to perform at Eurovision on Saturday

In a press conference addressed at the MCC, PBS CEO Anton Attard said this year’s show, which will be held at MCC this Friday 11 and Saturday 12 February, “will be bigger and better.”

The Friday event will feature performances by last year’s winner Thea Garret and Martin Mzorwski. The 24 songs that made it to the final phase of the contest will perform on Friday, 16 of which will move on the final phase on Saturday. The event will be presented by TV personalities Valerie Vella and Keith Demicoli.

The jury includes local and international personalities, and will be presided by Italian singer and song-writer Riccardo Cocciante. Every night, the songs will be judged by 9 juries- where six points will be given by the judges and three from the public by televoting.

“We adopted a more transparent system this year whereby each member of the jury will stand up and say who he voted for,” Attard said. “Also, televoting will be open from the start of the event, and not in the last 15 minutes.”

“We will also have a more simplified system whereby the same telephone number applies for all operators,” Attard said.

PBS will be airing the Countdown red-carpet show on Saturday 12 at 6pm on TVM. Described by the CEO as a kind of “pre-show”, it will include updated information and news about the contest, the guests, finalists and personalities.

The Malta Song team this year includes two ex- PBS chairpersons Norman Hamilton and Charlo Bonnici.

PBS chairperson Joe Mizzi and CEO Attard both thanked the main sponsors for their contributions towards the event. The Eurovision song contest is being organised with the main support of Mediterranean Bank, Rocs travel sale, Classic Jewellers, Schawarzkopf and Vodafone Malta.