Thanks to everyone who visited the chatroom for our LiveChat from the first dress rehearsal for tomorrow's Grand Final. It was a lively and well-attended affair, particularly for a Friday afternoon - although I suppose this isn't just any Friday afternoon! Providing a...

Afternoon all! Well, wasn't that a night last night? So many paradigm shifts, so many things we learned and re-learned anew. Armenia and Turkey don't have a guaranteed place in the final and will be punished for uncharismatic performances of average songs. Switzerland...

Hello and welcome to the press centre for the first dress rehearsal of the first semi-final for the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest! This is the one dress rehearsal where the arena is open to the press, but since there's no wi-fi over there, I'll be blogging it from in...

Welcome to the last day of open rehearsals for the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest! After today, we're into dress rehearsal territory, with the first full run-through of semi-final 1 starting at 15:00 CET tomorrow. In terms of our coverage over the next week,...

Back in the press centre for the 7th day of rehearsals after a bloomin' terrific Dino Merlin concert last night. That man is a star in every respect and is going to suck up all the Balkan and diaspora votes, particularly if Serbia and co. don't make it to the final....

Urgh. Hangover. And with good reason - it was the Georgian party last night, and you can read my report about it here, because it deserves separate attention. Meanwhile, esc-chat.com is back in the press centre and ready to go with the sixth day of rehearsals for the...

It's day 5 in Düsseldorf, and we're back where we started from, with Poland strutting their stuff on the stage as I type this opening sentence. Before we get to that, though, a few quick notes on last night. EuroClub opened its doors for real last night, with the...

Welcome to the press centre, home of free coffee (bliss!) but not free water (boo!). Another quietish night at the lovely EuroClub building - there was a Swiss party elsewhere in town, apparently, but it was just a brief live session in a jazz club so we weren't too...

Quiet night last night, as our apartment was collectively a bit on the tired side. Plenty of time left for partying, particularly since there's a few days until the delegation bashes get going, so Chinese takeaway, cheap supermarket wine and some DVDs and bad German...

Last night saw the official opening night of EuroClub in Düsseldorf Old Town, although there were few signs of ESC festivities just yet - the only artist I spotted was a slightly bemused-looking Axel aka Paradise Oskar trying to sway in time with "Boom Boom". It's an...

U-Bahn negotiated, security queues survived - welcome to the press centre at the Esprit Arena in Düsseldorf, where I'll be keeping a close eye on today's rehearsals and what we learn from them. First and foremost, the arena is looking impressive, as the first photo at...