International song competition
The Eurovision Song Contest 2003 was the 48th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Riga, Latvia, following the country's victory at the 2002 contest with the song "I Wanna" by Marie N. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster (LTV), the contest was held at the Skonto Hall on 24 May 2003. The contest was presented by last year's winner Marie N and former contestant Renārs Kaupers.
Twenty-six countries participated in the contest, beating the record of twenty-five first set in 1993. It saw the return of Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway and Poland after having been relegated from competing the previous year. Portugal also returned to the contest after being absent the previous year, while Ukraine participated in the contest for the first time. Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Macedonia and Switzerland were relegated due to their poor results in 2002.
The winner was Turkey with the song "Everyway That I Can", performed by Sertab Erener who wrote it with Demir Demirkan. This was Turkey's first victory in the contest after 28 years of participation. Belgium, Russia, Norway and Sweden rounded out the top five. Further down the table, the United Kingdom achieved their worst result to date, finishing twenty-sixth (last place) with no points. However, they avoided relegation due to being one of the "Big Four" countries at the time. The host country Latvia placed twenty-fourth (third from last) – this was the first time since 1995 that the host entry did not place in the top 10, and it was, overall, the worst result for a host entry since 1992.
This was the last contest to take place on one evening. The 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. As the Belgian entry was sung in an imaginary language, this was also the first time the contest featured a song with no parts performed in English or a language native to the country.
Location.
On 22 August 2002, Latvian public broadcaster (LTV) announced that it had chosen the Skonto Hall in Riga as the host venue for the 2003 contest.
Latvia won the Eurovision Song Contest 2002 on 25 May 2002 in Tallinn, Estonia with the song “I Wanna” performed by Marie N. This was Latvia's first victory in the contest, which also carried the right for LTV to organise the 2003 contest. LTV initially had budgetary concerns with staging the contest. The chairman of the National Radio and Television Council Ojārs Rubenis stated that if the government presented no budget guarantees, the council, which owns shares in LTV, would vote against organising the contest. Rubenis elaborated that LTV was prepared to cover the creative side and broadcasting of the contest, but additional funds would be needed for infrastructure, hotels and other financial issues.
The Government of Latvia allotted €5.3 million for the event with a further €1.1 million being provided by the Riga City Council – covering the anticipated organisational costs for the contest. A task force that included members from LTV, the National Radio and Television Council and state secretaries was formed to explicitly work on organisation of the contest and report on the estimated expenses.
Bidding phase.
Three cities were considered as host city of the contest: Riga, Ventspils and Jūrmala. LTV requested proposals from the three cities concerning how they plan to organise the contest. Riga City Council offered the Mežaparks Open-air Stage, Skonto Hall and the Ķīpsala International Exhibition Centre as potential venues for hosting the contest. Ventspils bid to host the contest at the Ventspils Olympic Centre with a pledge of support from city mayor Aivars Lembergs, who added that Ventspils could also provide two cruise ferries that could be used to accommodate up to 8,000 guests. Jūrmala City Council offered the Dzintari Concert Hall with plans to expand and upgrade the facility and surrounding infrastructure.
LTV's organisational task force later decided to proceed with the bids from Riga and Ventspils, eliminating Jūrmala and the Mežaparks Open-air Stage in Riga. On 15 June 2002, the EBU Reference Group decided in conjunction with the organisational task force in Latvia that Riga would host the 2003 contest with the venue option between the Skonto Hall and Ķīpsala International Exhibition Centre being decided upon by LTV. LTV ultimately chose the Skonto Hall as the venue to stage the contest.
Key
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 ;templatestyles src="Legend/styles.css" / ; ‡  Shortlisted
Participating countries.
Per the rules of the contest, twenty-six countries were allowed to participate in the event, a new record number of competing entries in a single edition. Originally a total of twenty-five countries were scheduled to participate in the event, however Ukraine was added to the line-up shortly before the publication of the competing countries in November 2002, making its début appearance in the contest. Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Portugal returned after being absent from the previous year's event, and competed alongside Ukraine, the "Big Four" largest contributing participating countries – France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom – and the remaining fifteen highest-scoring participating countries from the 2002 contest. Having received the lowest scores in the 2002 contest, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Macedonia, and Switzerland were subsequently relegated and were prevented from participating in this year's event.
Twenty-four countries participated in the 2002 contest in Tallinn; of these, fourteen were expected to compete in 2003. The bottom ten in Tallinn would be relegated, to allow countries to compete for the first time. In reality, only five countries were relegated – nineteen countries that entered in 2002 competed in Riga. Originally, Serbia and Montenegro, Albania and Belarus had planned 2003 debuts, but the EBU's late changes to the relegation procedure meant that they could not compete. The countries eventually made their debuts in 2004.
The 2003 contest was one of the few editions where no lead artists had previously competed as lead artists in past contests, although Slovenian representative Karmen had previously performed as a backing singer to Vili Resnik for Slovenia at the 1998 contest.
Format.
The EBU released the rules for the 2003 contest in November 2002, which detailed that twenty-six countries would participate, making it the largest number of participants to take part in the contest up to this point. The rules also modified the eligibility criteria for entries, changing the date of release cut-off point for songs from 1 January 2003 to 1 October 2002. There was also a change in the tie-break rule, which would now resolve such a case in favour of the nation that received points from a higher number of countries rather than taking into account the number of top scores (12 points) received. The draw for running order was held on 29 November 2002 in Riga, hosted by Marie N and Renārs Kaupers, with the results being revealed during a delayed broadcast of the proceedings later that day.
The official sponsors for the contest were Latvian mobile telecom provider and Latvian bank company . LTV selected Latvia Tours as its official partner to provide lodging, travel and recreation for the contest delegations and other guests. Riga City Council was also responsible for offering promotion and activities during the week preceding the contest.
Full preparations for the 2003 contest began on 18 May 2003 at the Skonto Hall. There were rehearsals, press conferences and participants were also involved in an internet chat. Two dress rehearsals were held on 23 May, in front of an estimated 12,000 people. The organisers of the contest held a press conference; one of the issues complained about was the lack of invitations for the after-party. The final dress rehearsal was held on 24 May, the day of the contest. A simulation of the voting procedure was also held, in which the presenters linked up with all twenty-six countries by satellite for the first time.
On the day of the contest, bookmaker William Hill's odds placed Russia as joint favourites to win the contest with Spain. Ireland, Slovenia, Estonia, Norway and Iceland were behind in third, fourth and joint fifth respectively. At the conclusion of the contest, favourites Russia placed third and Spain placed eighth, while outsiders Turkey (20-1) and Belgium (50-1) claimed the first and second places, respectively. Austria, at 100–1, were favourites to finish last, however, they scored their best result since 1989, placing sixth.
An official compilation album, featuring all twenty-six competing entries from the contest, was released for the first time on the EMI/CMC label.
Graphic design.
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. LTV launched a competition in order to find the logo for the contest. At the close of the competition, high interest from the public translated into 204 logo submissions, which were ultimately judged by a jury panel consisting of Uldis-Ivars Grava (general director of LTV), Arvīds Babris (then executive producer of the contest), Ugis Brikmanis (director), Laimonis Šteinbergs (artist), Ingūna Rībena (architect), Arta Giga (LTV representative) and Juhan Paadam (EBU representative). On 16 November 2002, LTV and the EBU presented the logo for the contest which was designed by the director of the Computer Graphics Department of LTV, Maris Kalve with further elaboration by LTV's chief artist Kristaps Skulte. The logo was named "upes", the Latvian word for rivers, and carried the slogan "All rivers flow toward the sea, all songs flow toward the Eurovision Song Contest".
The postcards shown between the entries were directed by Ugis Brikmanis and featured the artists competing at the contest interacting with Latvia's various landscapes: forests, rivers, lakes and towns. The postcards were recorded during the preceding week of the contest and ran behind schedule, leading to some postcards featuring only footage from the rehearsals and press conferences.
The stage design was created by Aigars Ozoliņš and based on the concept called Planet Latvia. The stage used several light and video effects and included an innovation new to the contest – a video screen stage floor that could be used to give each entry a unique look. The green room where the delegations and competitors awaited the results of the contest was placed directly behind the stage and unveiled shortly before the voting portion of the show commenced, allowing the audience to see the representatives of the competing nations as they received points. For the first time, the scoreboard automatically rearranged itself in descending order as each point was awarded, making it easier for the audience and television viewers to follow the exact progress of the competitors throughout the voting process.
National host broadcaster.
Initially, Arvīds Babris, head of the Latvian delegation at the 2002 contest, was appointed as executive producer for the contest, however, after production fell behind schedule and the EBU applied pressure upon LTV, he was dismissed and Brigita Rozenbrika took over the position, receiving additional support from the Swedish broadcaster Sveriges Television (SVT) and Estonian broadcaster Eesti Televisioon (ETV). SVT was also the technical producer of the contest for the second year running with Sven Stojanović as director and the Swedish lighting company Spectra+ contracted for the contest.
Voting system.
The EBU reintroduced televoting as an obligatory voting mode in all participating countries, which awarded 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 and 12 points to their ten favourite songs, in ascending order. Countries voted in the same order as they had performed. Bosnia and Herzegovina and Russia were granted an exception to holding a televote as they cited that their telecommunications penetration was less than 80%. Polish broadcaster Telewizja Polska opted to use only SMS-voting. In the televoting/smsvoting household shall not be permitted to vote more than three times. All other countries planned to use a televote. Due to a technical issue, Ireland used results from their back-up jury instead of televoting. This contest was also the first to introduce a computer-generated scoreboard which rearranged itself in order as the points were awarded. Broadcasters were required to assemble back-up juries that consisted of eight voting members, with age and gender equally distributed, in the case of televote failure on the night of the competition. Four members of the jury had to