Today marks the first day of the Rehearsals for Eurovision 2018, and it also marks the first time I will be setting foot into the press centre for my first ever Eurovision live. It’s a big first day filled with hot favourites, so let’s get into what we can expect for Day 1!

Each participant rehearsing today gets a total of 30 minutes, with the first rehearsal kicking off at 10:00 local time. Journalists at the press centre have the opportunity to watch the rehearsals on the big screen, but don’t yet have access to the arena to watch the action in person.

Today, we’ll see performances from the first 10 entrants of the first semi-final. This includes:

• Azerbaijan – 10:00-10:30

• Iceland – 10:40-11:10

• Albania – 11:20-11:50

• Belgium – 12:00-12:30

• LUNCH

• Czech Republic – 13:40-14:10

• Lithuania – 14:20-14:50

• Israel – 15:00-15:30

• BREAK

• Belarus – 16:00-16:30

• Estonia -16:40-17:10

• Bulgaria – 17:20-17:50

What can you expect from us? Each day leading up to the contest, we hope to bring you content both through the Eurovision Union website, but also through our social media. You can expect our first impressions of the rehearsals, accompanied by any official clips posted by the official source, Eurovision.tv. On Twitter, we hope to give more live updates into what’s happening in the press centre and the arena, so if you want real time news, that’s the platform we’d recommend you follow (if you haven’t already! @ESC_Union).

You can join the chat on any of our Social media accounts, of which you can find below!