Erez Tal, Bar Refaeli, plus Assi Azar and Lucy Ayoub in the Green Room (artists backstage), were last Friday officially announced as the hosts for the 2019 Eurovision song contest. The official starting date for selling tickets, at which a draw will be held for determining the order in which countries will participate in the semifinals and a ceremony will be held transferring the Eurovision keys from the Lisbon municipality to the Tel Aviv municipality, will take place tomorrow. The ceremony will take place in the afternoon at the Tel Aviv Art Museum in the presence of Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai, Lisbon Deputy Mayor Duare Cordeiro, Eurovision executive supervisor Jon Ola Sand, and Israel Public Broadcasting Corporation (Kan) general manager Eldad Koblenz.
The ceremony will begin with the delivery of the keys from Lisbon to Tel Aviv, the host of this year's contest. The country hosting the competition traditionally adds an icon to the keychain before delivering it to the next host city.
After the ceremony, a draw will be held for dividing the participating countries into two semifinals. The draw will be in two parts. The first will determine in which semifinal the five principal financing countries for the Eurovision (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK) and the host country (Israel) will vote and be broadcast. The second draw will determine in which semifinal the other 36 countries will appear. The countries participating in the semifinals will be divided into six "baskets," taking into account the voting patterns in earlier years. The aim is to avoid the formation of blocs of countries giving most of their points to each other through their participation in the same semifinal.
The two semifinal events will take place on May 14 and May 16, 2019. The countries with the highest numbers of points will participate in the final on Saturday night, May 18, which will be broadcast on the Kan 11 channel and on digital television. The events will be held at the Tel Aviv Convention Center (Expo Tel Aviv).
Ticket sales are beginning later than in previous years, when all tickets were sold out already 107 days before the competition began.
There are 3,000 seats for each of the events in Tel Aviv. Half of the tickets are allotted to the host country and half to the other countries. Hundreds of the tickets for the host country will be given to the media, and so on. The events include the finals, the two semifinals, and the dress rehearsals, for which cheaper tickets can be purchased.
The Tel Aviv municipality expects 18,000 tourists to arrive for the competition. 30,000 tourists visited Lisbon for last year's competition, while the number of tickets on sale for the Eurovision events was 20,000. In Kiev, where the 2017 Eurovision contest was held, 11,000 tickets were sold, while 20,000 tourists visited the city during the Eurovision contest. 38,000 tourists visited Stockholm when the Eurovision contest was held there in 2016, while the number of tickets sold was 16,000.
Tel Aviv is beginning its preparations for Eurovision guests. Billboards were posted this week, and discussion is scheduled for Tuesday on the tender for building a tent city in Ganei Yehoshua (Hayarkon Park) with a capacity of 2,000. Guests can sleep in tents or caravans. The Tel Aviv municipality will also use the facilities for a Gay Pride Parade on June 14, a month after the Eurovision.
How much will tickets cost? The European organization controls the price of tickets, which will be similar to tickets sold in Lisbon. The most expensive ticket sold for the finals were Golden Ring Premium (in the Green Room), which sold for €300. Regular Golden Ring tickets, in which the ticket buyers had to stand, were sold for €200. Seats in the hall varied from €150 for the best seats, €50-90 for the back rows, and €35 for seats in the rear balcony. Seats with wheelchairs were sold for €50 last year.
Tickets in Israel will therefore start from NIS 150 for the cheapest tickets, with tickets available for NIS 210, NIS 380, and NIS 630 for seat in the hall. Golden Ring tickets will be sold for NIS 850-1,300. Tickets for the general rehearsal in Lisbon cost €15-100 (NIS 65-420) for seats in the hall and €110-140 (NIS 460-600) for Golden Ring seats.
Tickets to the semifinals in Lisbon cost €100-140 (NIS 420-600) for Golden Ring and €15-60 (NIS 65-250) for seats in the hall. Tickets to the general rehearsal for the semifinals are also available: €45-75 for Golden Ring seats (NIS 200-315), and €10-40 (NIS 42-170) for seats in the hall.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on January 27, 2019
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2019