Eurovision rehearsals enter day three in Vienna as delegations fine‑tune live staging

Eurovision is now in the part of rehearsal week where the performances stop being broad sketches and start becoming TV. On Wednesday, May 6, ten countries returned to the Wiener Stadthalle for their second rehearsals — Moldova, Sweden, Croatia, Greece, Portugal, Georgia, Finland, Montenegro, Estonia and Israel. These are shorter runs than the first round, but they matter more than they sound, because this is where delegations test what viewers will actually see on screen. ### Why is day three a little confusing? Because “day three” in some fan coverage refers to the third day of artist rehearsals, not the third day on the calendar. The first artist rehearsals started on May 2, then ran across both semi-finals. By the official schedule, May 6 is the first day of second rehearsals for the first ten songs in Semi-Final 1. So the contest has moved from building performances to tightening them. ### What changes in a second rehearsal? Time, mostly. First rehearsals are the longer work sessions where delegations review full recordings and discuss visuals, camera work and choreography afterward. Second rehearsals are shorter — 25 minutes per country on the current schedule — and the official process says only small adjustments are made after those runs. Bringing lighting and stage picture to land cleanly. ### Which countries were up on Wednesday? The order matters because it tracks the first chunk of Semi-Final 1. Wednesday’s schedule listed Moldova at 10:30 CEST, then Sweden, Croatia, Greece, Portugal and Georgia before the break, followed by Finland, Montenegro, Estonia and Israel. That is the first block of second rehearsals before the remaining Semi-Final 1 acts rehearse on Thursday. ### So why are fans watching this so closely? Because rehearsal week is the last real chance for a song to change shape before juries and televoters see it. Eurovision isn’t just a song contest — it’s a three-minute television performance contest. A vocal that sounded fine at a national final can feel bigger or smaller once it hits the arena. A staging idea that pops early enough to fix. ### Is the press seeing everything? Not in the way fans used to. EurovisionWorld’s schedule notes that first and second rehearsals are closed to the press. The official Eurovision site is pushing backstage updates through its app, while fan outlets and broadcasters are publishing selected photos, snippets and delegation comments instead of full open-center access. The result is less raw footage, but still enough to move expectations. ### What’s still ahead this week? Thursday, May 7 finishes the remaining Semi-Final 1 second rehearsals and starts first rehearsals for Italy, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and host Austria. Friday switches to the first ten songs from Semi-Final 2, and Saturday wraps the second semi-final field plus another run for the automatic finalists and Austria. Then the opening ceremony lands on May 10, and live-show week starts immediately after. ### Why does the Vienna setting matter? This is the 70th Eurovision Song Contest, and Vienna is hosting after Austria’s 2025 win. That anniversary angle raises the pressure a bit — not just to qualify, but to look like part of a milestone edition. The official event page is already framing Vienna 2026 as a bigger, global celebration, which means every rehearsal image now feeds the larger story of how this edition wants to present itself. ### Bottom line? Wednesday wasn’t about surprise entries suddenly appearing. It was about ten already-known acts taking the rough edges off their performances before the real deadline hits. In Eurovision terms, that’s when the contest starts to feel less like prep and more like a broadcast.