The 2013 Eurovision national final season might be over, but there was little chance of this being a quiet and uneventful week!

Things kicked off on Monday with the meeting of the Heads of Delegation in Malmö, which traditionally reveals some of the organisational details of the forthcoming contest – and there were several question marks still hanging over some of SVT’s new ideas for ESC 2013. Many of these concerned the revised procedure for determining the running order of the three shows. First and foremost, we learned that the running order for the semi-finals will be decided and announced by March 29th, which is good news for those of us who enjoy listening to the songs in draw order!

In a slight change of plan, a draw of sorts will also be made for the grand final. More specifically, as part of the winners’ press conference after each semi-final, the qualifying countries will be drawn into the first or second half of the final – presumably to make life easier for the producers, who will have to get straight to work and announce the final running order by 3am on Friday 17 May. Coffee on standby, we think.

Another draw has already been made: in order to avoid accusations of bias, Sweden’s starting position in the final was drawn randomly, and Robin Stjernberg will perform “You” from position number 16.

The HoD meeting also marks the date on which each national delegation has to finalise and submit its entry for the contest, so we received confirmation that Lozano & Esma will indeed perform “Pred da se razdeni” rather than the original song choice, “Imperija” – much to Esma’s apparent displeasure, given her comments in the media the next day about having been relegated to the role of a mere backing singer! Meanwhile, Italian broadcaster RAI announced that Marco Mengoni will sing “L’essenziale”, the song with which he was so successful at this year’s Sanremo Festival.

On Tuesday, the first images of this year’s stage were released by the EBU. The design is intended to convey “a sense of strength, lightness and motion”, apparently – we think it conveys a sense of ESC 1997 combined with the mouth of hell, but that’s pretty cool too!

Image source: EBU

In the evening, Bonnie Tyler underwent the traditional rite of passage for any UK Eurovision entrant: an appearance on the BBC’s flagship early evening magazine programme, the One Show. The hard-hitting interrogation revealed that entering the contest was all her manager’s idea and that she was confident her Europe-wide fanbase would be an advantage on the scoreboard – so there we go. Tyler was then presented with a Union Flag mosaic made by a company called… Bonny Tiler. (There was no sign of it at the next day’s rehearsal session, though – maybe it’s already been donated to the Mumbles Oxfam.)

Wednesday saw a rare case of a delegation actually listening to feedback and responding quickly. Armenia had released the preview video for Gor Sujyan and Dorians’ “Lonely Planet” on Monday, but the otherwise slick and effective clip contained a glaring error at the 0:32 mark, with the phrase “Brake the wall” (sic) being projected onto one poor band member’s T-shirt. Fortunately that kind of thing is easy enough to correct in this digital age, and a rectified version was swiftly produced and re-uploaded to the official Eurovision YouTube channel. Of course, it’s too late to change lyrics like “Who’s the man with clever face?” and “Bringing crowd against the squad”, but hey, what can you do?

On Friday, it was announced that Lynda Woodruff would be involved in ESC 2013 in some capacity. For those not yet in the know, Woodruff – played by singer and presenter Sarah Dawn Finer – is a hapless EBU representative with a Comical Ali-style flair for glossing over problems and a total inability to pronounce complex place names. Having been rolled out at the last two Melodifestivalen finals and during last year’s ESC voting, we suspect the character is somewhat past its best – but the plan this time is for Woodruff to visit various parts of Sweden, so at least there should be less poking fun at those silly foreigners and their silly languages. And on a personal note, I do hope this means she’ll be visiting my mother’s home town of Kattenhom… Catreenyhome… Catter… of Flen.

Meanwhile, the latest Norwegian charts published on Friday had a new number 1. The runaway commercial hit from this year’s Melodi Grand Prix is not winner Margaret Berger – instead, it’s runner-up Adelén, whose song “Bombo” has managed to bring a bit of summer sunshine into one of the coldest winters in recent memory, grabbing the top spot and banishing all memories of her off-key performance at the national final.

Finally, Saturday saw the sad announcement of the death of John Hatting. In 1982, Hatting formed part of Brixx, the band who represented Denmark in Harrogate with the song “Video Video” – sadly with little impact on the scoreboard. However, Hatting’s next two encounters with the ESC would be far more successful. As a member of Trax, he competed in Dansk Melodi Grand Prix in three successive years, finally getting the ticket to Bergen in 1986 with his own composition “Du er fuld af løgn”, which achieved an impressive 6th place on the European stage. He then gathered another top 10 placing in 1990 when he penned the infectious “Hallo Hallo” by Lonnie Devantier. In memory of a man responsible for some true Scandi ESC classics, we give you the legendary preview video to the latter song:

To end this week on a happier note, we should mention the preparations for our legendary annual ChatVote – a fine old tradition that we’re delighted to be continuing as usual this year. You can find all the latest information here, with more details to be announced as the events in the #esc chatroom come nearer.

Meanwhile, esc-chat.com will be keeping you up-to-date on all the latest news in the run-up to ESC 2013, so don’t forget to check out this website and tune into our Twitter and Facebook accounts too. And have a great week!