Eurovision Dance Contest - Glasgow '08

I posted before about the Eurovision Dance Contest and more information has come out recently about it.

The show will take place in the 2,000 seat SECC Arena Hall, in Glasgow on September 6th. The show will again be presented by Graham Norton and Claudia Winkleman. A total of 15th countries will be taking part. A number of them have already selected their entries. Ireland shall be sending Gavin Ó Fearraigh and Dearbhla Lennon who were selected on a Late, Late Show Special back on the 30th of May.

Full couples have been selected by Austria (Dorian Steidl and Nicole Kuntner), Denmark (Patrick Spiegelberg and Katja Svensson), Finland (Maria Lund and Mikko Ahti), Ireland (Gavin Ó Fearraigh and Dearbhla Lennon), Poland (Edyta Herbuś and Marcin Mroczek), Portugal (Raquel Tavares and João Tiago), Sweden (Danny Saucedo & Jeanette Carlsson) and the Ukraine (Lilia Podkopayeva & Kyrylo Khytrov).

Spain and the Netherlands have half their couple selected with Spain being represented by Rosa López and the Netherlands by Thomas Berge.

Azerbaijan, Greece, Lithuania, Russia and the United Kingdom must still select their entries.

There has been a few changes from the first edition of the contest. This year each couple will only dance once and that will be a freestyle dance incorporating national flavour. That was the part I enjoyed last year. Professional couples are also banned this year, each country will be represented by a professional dancer and a local celebrity not professionally trained to dance. This will make the competition a little bit more interesting and recognition from participating states to the local celebrity.

Rge Voting will be different as well. Professional judges will be awarding 20% of the available votes (48) with televoting from the countries in usual way (1-8, 10 and 12).

Azerbaijan is new to the contest this year and Switzerland and Germany are withdrawing due to low ratings and poor results. Albania, Belarus, Cyprus, Iceland and FYR Macedonia are broadcasting the competition allowing them to enter next year if they so wish.

I wonder will we do better this year?