Eurovision Song Contest 2003

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Tirgoņu iela 2, Centra rajons, Rīga, LV-1050, Latvia

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The Eurovision Song Contest 2003 was the 48th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Riga, Latvia, following Marie N's win at the 2002 contest in Tallinn, Estonia with the song "I Wanna". It was the first win and hosting of the competition for Latvia with only their third participation after debuting at the 2000 contest.
Latvijas Televīzija (LTV) chose the Skonto Hall as the venue after conducting a bidding process among several cities and venues in Latvia. The hosts for the contest were the previous year's winner Marie N and former Latvian representative at the 2000 contest, Renārs Kaupers, who competed in the contest as part of the band Brainstorm. The design of the contest was built around the theme "Magical rendez-vous", which represented the meeting of the various European nations coming to Latvia and encountering Latvia's versatile landscapes. Twenty-six countries participated, which saw the return of Iceland, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway and Poland after having been relegated from competing the previous year, Portugal returning to the contest after withdrawing the previous year, while Ukraine participated in the contest for the first time. Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Macedonia and Switzerland were required to withdraw due to their poor results in the 2002 contest.
The winner for 2003 was Turkey with the song "Everyway That I Can" sung by Sertab Erener, written by legendary Turkish rock guitarist Demir Demirkan and Erener herself. The song scored 167 points, narrowly beating Belgium into second place with a margin of 2 points and Russia into third place with a margin of 3 points. This was the first win for Turkey at the Eurovision Song Contest. Norway and Sweden rounded out of the top five, placing fourth and fifth respectively. The United Kingdom achieved their worst result to date, coming in last place (26th) and scoring no points from any of the twenty-six voting nations., however they avoided relegation due to being one of the "Big Four" countries at the time. The 2003 contest was the last contest to take place on one evening. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) revealed that it would be adding a semi-final show to the competition in order to accommodate the growing number of interested countries wishing to take part in the contest. This was also the last contest in which a relegation system was used to determine which countries would participate in the following year's contest. The contest also marked the first time in the history of the competition where all participants were participating for the first time; there were no returning artists that had already competed in the contest on a previous occasion. As the Belgian entry was sung in an imaginary language, this was the first time the contest featured a song not performed in English or a native language to the country.

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