What happened at today's Heads of Delegation Meeting?

Many countries were represented by countries in the room, whilst for others who were unable to attend a Skype Conference Call was set up to enable them to be involved in some parts of the day.

Host broadcaster PBS gave many presentations on the various elements to this year’s competition, such as: Accreditation, Security, Transport, Social Activities, School visits, the Show, and the Volunteers.

During the meeting, several key points were either addressed or decided, and these were:

Running Order

The rules for Junior Eurovision 2014 state that the running order would be decided by a random draw. Host broadcaster PBS and the production team requested permission to change this rule, and revered to a producer-led draw. This was agreed to by all of the delegations taking part in the meeting, in order to create a better flow to the show - and avoid similar songs taking to the stage one after another.

The running order will therefore be formed as follows during the Welcome Reception (on Sunday 9 November):

• Malta randomly picks its position
• The countries in positions #1 and #16 are picked at random
• The remaining 13 countries choose either ‘First Half’ or ‘Second Half’ at random
• PBS presents the running order, approved by the Executive Supervisor and Steering Group, at the end of the Welcome Reception.

Rehearsal schedule

For the first time, the countries will not rehearse in running order. This is to allow for scheduling of the school visits and social trips for individual delegations, as it would be impossible to organise visiting a school the next day if the running order is only known on Sunday evening. The rehearsal schedule (Monday-Thursday) will therefore run with a pre-determined order, which is irrelevant of the running order for the live show. The songs will perform in their actual running order for the first time on Friday during the dress rehearsals.

This will not, in any way, influence the running order.

Voting

Junior Eurovision will revert to the ‘Top 10’ voting system, used previously in both the Junior and adult Eurovision Song Contests prior to 2013. This means that the jury will award points 1-8, 10 & 12 to the songs, whilst the televoting will also do the same. Neither the televoting, nor the jurors, will rank the songs from 1-16.

The tie-break procedure for determining the winner does not change.

Spokespersons will only announce points 8, 10 and 12 on stage. Points 1-7 will appear automatically on the scoreboard – this is to ensure that the show does not over-run.