Wonderful Song Contest 73

Wonderful Song Contest 73 will be the seventy third edition of the Wonderful Song Contest. The contest took place in Portugal after the Portuguese victory in the 72nd edition. A total of 50 countries competed in Wonderful Song Contest 72. The 72nd edition was won by and their song "Under Your Control" by Ana Kohler, which got a total of 334 points. Prequalified countries for this edition are:, , , ,  and. They are directly qualified to the final, while the other competing countries are split into two semifinals. The Semi Final allocation draw took place on February 2023 at the WBU headquarters in Prague.

Information


On 22nd February 2023 it was announced that Porto will serve as the host city of the Wonderful Song Contest 72.

Host City
Porto is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Oporto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Oporto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropolitan area, with an estimated population of just 231,800 people in a municipality with only 41.42 km2. Porto's metropolitan area has around 1.7 million people (2021) in an area of 2,395 km2 (925 sq mi), making it the second-largest urban area in Portugal. It is recognized as a global city with a Gamma + rating from the Globalization and World Cities Research Network.

Located along the Douro River estuary in northern Portugal, Oporto is one of the oldest European centres, and its core was proclaimed a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1996, as "Historic Centre of Porto, Luiz I Bridge and Monastery of Serra do Pilar". The historic area is also a National Monument of Portugal. The western part of its urban area extends to the coastline of the Atlantic Ocean. Its settlement dates back many centuries, when it was an outpost of the Roman Empire. Its combined Celtic-Latin name, Portus Cale, has been referred to as the origin of the name Portugal, based on transliteration and oral evolution from Latin. In Portuguese, the name of the city includes a definite article: o Porto ("the port" or "the harbor"), which is where its English name "Oporto" comes from.

Port wine, one of Portugal's most famous exports, is named after Porto, since the metropolitan area, and in particular the cellars of Vila Nova de Gaia, were responsible for the packaging, transport, and export of fortified wine. In 2014 and 2017, Oporto was elected The Best European Destination by the Best European Destinations Agency. Oporto is on the Portuguese Way path of the Camino de Santiago.

Bidding phase
Only one main venue was announced as possible venue for the competition to be held. It has a capacity of 20,000 and several big concerts and sport events take place here.
 * The host city had to be near a major airport.
 * The venue must be available for at least six weeks before the contest and one week after the conclusion of the contest
 * The venue must not be open-air, but an air-conditioned building with a capacity of at least 10,000 and a minimum ceiling height of 15 metres (49 ft), insulated for sound and light.
 * The green room must be located as close to the arena as possible (or within it), with a capacity of 300.

Presenter(s)
On 22nd February 2023 it was announced that Noa Kirel, Ran Danker, Lucy Ayoub will be presenters of the Wonderful Song Contest 72.

Noa Kirel was born in Ra'anana, Israel, to Israeli-born parents of Ashkenazi Jewish (Austrian-Jewish) descent and of both Sephardi Jewish and Mizrahi Jewish (Moroccan-Jewish) descent. She is the youngest child of Amir and Ilana Kirel and has two older brothers. Her father is the CEO of Glassco Glass, an imported-glass business headquartered at the Barkan industrial park. On her father's side, Kirel has relatives who were killed in the Holocaust. Her parents named her Noya but after being diagnosed with a serious kidney illness at three months old, a rabbi suggested a name change to Noa ('Noa' can also spell "movement" in Hebrew). He also predicted that she might even become a dancer. In February 2020, Kirel was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and served in a unique military band. She received an honorable discharge, completing her two-year mandatory service on 14 February 2022.

Ran Danker was born in Norfolk, Virginia, United States, to a Jewish family. He is the son of Israeli actor Eli Danker. He went to Israel with his mother when he was two years old after his parents' divorce. He grew up in the Bavli neighborhood in Tel Aviv. During that time he was a member of the Ha-Horesh tribe choir of the scouts youth movement. Towards his Junior High year, Ran and his mother moved to Poleg, Netanya. Between high school and his army service, Ran participated in a few TV commercials: a promo of Channel 10; a commercial of Bank Leumi; and the cell phone company Cellcom. As a teenager, Ran was a delivery boy for Domino's Pizza in Netanya. He was a helicopter technician during his military service in the Israel Defense Forces. Danker was previously in a high-profile relationship with fellow HaShir Shelanu star, Ninet Tayeb. Israeli media labelled the pair "Raninet". Following the break up he was named the most eligible bachelor in 2007 by "Pnai Plus". He also reportedly dated his other HaShir Shelanu co-star, Ania Bukstein as well as the supermodel, Bar Refaeli. Danker and Refaeli's mothers are close friends. Danker and Tayeb remain friends and when asked in a 2019 Ynet interview about his former partner, Danker said that they will soon be in touch and will collaborate. The pair performed together in September 2019.

Lucy Ayoub is an Israeli television presenter, poet and radio host, formerly of the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (IPBC) and currently working for Keshet Media Group. Ayoub co-hosted the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 alongside Assi Azar, Bar Refaeli and Erez Tal. Ayoub was born in Haifa, Israel. She is the daughter of an Arab-Christian father, and an Ashkenazi Jewish mother who converted to Christianity upon their marriage. Ayoub has one brother and three sisters. Her paternal grandmother was the daughter of Palestinian refugees who fled to Lebanon during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, leaving her in a convent in Israel, and later was adopted by a prosperous Arab-Christian woman named Lucy Khayat. Her maternal grandparents were Holocaust survivors: her maternal grandfather had been in a Nazi concentration camp, while her maternal grandmother from Romania survived among partisans as a child. Ayoub celebrates both the Christian and Jewish holidays with different parts of her family, while personally being an atheist, saying "I’m an atheist and it means nothing to me that I was baptized [in church]". She attended a Catholic Carmelites school in Haifa. She wrote stories and poems in both Arabic and Hebrew. Ayoub was enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces, serving for two years as a flight simulator instructor in the Israeli Air Force. Since 2016, she has studied philosophy, politics, economics, and law at the Tel Aviv University.



Provisitation list of Participants

 * Countries are in Prequalification Round next edition
 * Countries qualified to the grand final or semifinal
 * Country have won current edition
 * Country have finished on second place current edition
 * Country have finished on third place current edition
 * Country have finished on last place current editions final
 * Country have been disqualified from current editions final or semifinal
 * Country have in the final qualified to the semifinals or final

All Songs
All countries had to present their songs until 26th January 2023 at 22:00 CEST.

First Semifinal
The deadline to vote in semifinals is 07 February 2023 at 22:00 CET. , and  have to vote in this semifinal.

Second Semifinal
The deadline to vote in semifinals is 07 February 2023 at 22:00 CET. , and  have to vote in this semifinal.