Opening Ceremony kicks off a week full of Junior Eurovision excitement
19 November 2018 at 17:37 CET
JESC opening ceremony 2018
Andres Putting
Today the Opening Ceremony took place at the BelExpo Exhibition Centre in Minsk. Delegations from the 20 participating countries walked the red carpet. And... the first, last and Belarusian positions in the show's running order were decided!
The delegations walked the red carpet in alphabetical order and were interviewed by hosts Denis Dudinski and Anna Kviloria. After that, they were greeted by Jon Ola Sand, Executive Supervisor of the EBU and Ivan Eismont, Chairman of Belarusian Host Broadcaster BTRC.
Rewatch the live stream here:
After walking the red carpet, participants shared their biggest dream with the audience. Their dreams varied from Albania's Efi Gjika who wants to become a famous artist to Ireland's Taylor Hynes who wants to make the world a better place. Malta's Ela answered: "My dream is to do music for the rest of my life", and Georgia's Tamar Edilashvili said: "My dream is to become a singer that everyone takes inspiration from. I also want to be very kind for the rest of my life."
The hosts of Sunday's show came on stage to help select the positions of Ukraine, Belarus and Poland on Sunday 25 November. The draw resulted in the following positions: Ukraine will open the show, Host Country Belarus will perform at position 8 and Poland will close the show. Click HERE for the full running order.
The Opening Ceremony ended with a performance of Masha Zhilina who sang Welcome To My Belarus. Masha was a finalist at the Belarusian National Selection for the 2018 contest. Russia's Polina Bogusevich, who won the 2017 Junior Eurovision Song Contest, performed her song Wings.
