The New Eurovision Song Contest 07

For the last edition, see The New Eurovision Song Contest 06

For the next edition, see The New Eurovision Song Contest 08

The New Eurovision Song Contest 07 was the seventh edition of The New Eurovision Song Contest. It was held in Ljubljana, Slovenia. It is the first time the contest will take place in the Slovenia after July Jones won the sixth edition with their song "Jump In The Water".

64 countries participated in this edition, including the United States announcing their debut in the contest. Tunisia announced their withdrawal from the edition. Estonia and New Zealand also returned to the contest after being disqualified last edition.

Iran was the winner of the edition with the song "We Don't Run From Anyone" performed by Amanda Delara which scored 208 points, 32 points ahead the runner-up Lithuania. This is the first time that the country wins the contest. France finished in third place. Brazil, Ukraine and South Africa were on fourth, fifth and sixth places.

Host Venue
Arena Stožice is a multi-purpose indoor arena located in Ljubljana, Slovenia. It was designed by Slovenian Sadar Vuga d.o.o. architects and is the biggest indoor arena in the country. It lies in the Bežigrad district, north of the city centre. The arena is part of the Stožice Sports Park sports complex.

The arena is the home ground of basketball club KK Olimpija. It also hosts international matches of volleyball club ACH Volley.

The stadium was named after the area in which it is located, and the change of the name is possible in the future due to sponsorship rights. Together with a football stadium it is part of the Stožice Sports Park. The arena building area measures 14,164 square meters. It was constructed in just 14 months and opened on 10 August 2010 with a basketball match between Slovenia and Spain, which was won by Spain 79–72 after overtime.

The arena has a capacity of 12,480 seats for basketball and is located in the north-western part of the park. The four levels of concourses and the lower, VIP and upper stands are covered by a shell-shaped dome. The arena is used for indoor sports such as basketball, handball and volleyball and is the home venue of KK Olimpija and ACH Volley among others. The arena is scheduled to be one of the main venues of Slovenian national teams in most indoor sports. Alongside the stadium the arena is also designed to host many cultural events.

Location
Ljubljana is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. It has been the cultural, educational, economic, political, and administrative center of independent Slovenia since 1991. Its central geographic location within Slovenia, transport connections, concentration of industry, scientific and research institutions, and cultural tradition are contributing factors to its leading position.

During antiquity, a Roman city called Emona stood in the area. Ljubljana itself was first mentioned in the first half of the 12th century. It was under Habsburg rule from the Middle Ages until the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918. Situated at the middle of a trade route between the northern Adriatic Sea and the Danube region, it was the historical capital of Carniola, a Slovene-inhabited part of the Habsburg Monarchy.

The origin of name of the city, Ljubljana, is unclear. In the Middle Ages, both the river and the town were also known by the German name Laibach. This name was in official use as an endonym until 1918, and it remains frequent as a German exonym, both in common speech and official use. The city is alternatively named Lublana in many English language documents. The city is called Lublana in Silesian, Lubiana in Italian, in Latin: Labacum and anciently Aemona.

For most scholars, the problem has been in how to connect the Slovene and the German names. The origin from the Slavic ljub- "to love, like" was in 2007 supported as the most probable by the linguist Tijmen Pronk, a specialist in comparative Indo-European linguistics and Slovene dialectology, from the University of Leiden. He supported the thesis that the name of the river derived from the name of the settlement. The linguist Silvo Torkar, who specializes in Slovene personal and place names, argued at the same place for the thesis that the name Ljubljana derives from Ljubija, the original name of the Ljubljanica River flowing through it, itself derived from the Old Slavic male name Ljubovid, "the one of a lovely appearance". The name Laibach, he claimed, was actually a hybrid of German and Slovene and derived from the same personal name.

The symbol of the city is the Ljubljana Dragon. It is depicted on the top of the tower of Ljubljana Castle in the Ljubljana coat of arms and on the Ljubljanica-crossing Dragon Bridge (Zmajski most). It symbolizes power, courage, and greatness.

There are several explanations on the origin of the Ljubljana Dragon. According to a Slavic myth, the slaying of a dragon releases the waters and ensures the fertility of the earth, and it is thought that the myth is tied to the Ljubljana Marshes, the expansive marshy area that periodically threatens Ljubljana with flooding. According to the celebrated Greek legend, the Argonauts on their return home after having taken the Golden Fleece found a large lake surrounded by a marsh between the present-day towns of Vrhnika and Ljubljana. It was there that Jason struck down a monster. This monster has evolved into the dragon that today is present in the city coat of arms and flag.

It is historically more believable that the dragon was adopted from Saint George, the patron of the Ljubljana Castle chapel built in the 15th century. In the legend of Saint George, the dragon represents the old ancestral paganism overcome by Christianity. According to another explanation, related to the second, the dragon was at first only a decoration above the city coat of arms. In the Baroque, it became part of the coat of arms, and in the 19th and especially the 20th century, it outstripped the tower and other elements in importance.

Semi-final 1

 * The ten countries in this semi-final with the highest scoring points, according to the votes from each voting country will qualify for the Grand Final.
 * Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/user/tjerk.grootwesseldijk/playlist/5k2oHaNLHXySDukXMWKfvN?si=cmgPVeD4Tzed2Z7LiyLFnQ - excluding Kazakhstan and China.

Semi-final 2
Media:
 * The ten countries in this semi-final with the highest scoring points, according to the votes from each voting country will qualify for the Grand Final.
 * Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/user/tjerk.grootwesseldijk/playlist/3Q8e52cifJlkXe2W30fF8l?si=hgel-bwPROyuapV8EUUWxg - excluding Australia and Greece

Semi-final 3

 * The ten countries in this semi-final with the highest scoring points, according to the votes from each voting country will qualify for the Grand Final.

Grand Final

 * Thirty-one countries participated in the final, with all countries participating in the contest eligible to vote.
 * Non-qualifying countries will be counted as televoting.

Scoreboard
Semi-final 1

Semi-final 2

Semi-final 3

Other Countries

 * https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ce/Flag_of_Tunisia.svg/23px-Flag_of_Tunisia.svg.png Tunisia - ERTT announced its withdrawal from the competition due to lack of interest and financial difficulties of the broadcaster.
 * https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fe/Flag_of_Egypt.svg/23px-Flag_of_Egypt.svg.png Egypt - ERTU confirmed that the country would not return in the seventh edition. They also reiterated that Egypt's withdrawal from the contest since the fourth edition was due to poor results from the past editions.
 * https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/9e/Flag_of_Japan.svg/23px-Flag_of_Japan.svg.png Japan - Japanese broadcaster NHK originally stated that they have received membership from the TNEBU, therefore being eligible to debut. However Japan wasn't on the list of final participants.
 * https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/78/Flag_of_Chile.svg/23px-Flag_of_Chile.svg.png Chile - Chilean broadcaster UCV Television stated their interest in debuting in this contest, but they failed to do so due to huge costs of applying for full TNEBU membership.