It is the 13th February 2022. One day before Valentine’s Day, several journalists were gathered in Gralois’ city hall and waited for something to happen.
To be precise, they waited for someone to come in, namely the mayor of Gralois, Arneslo Valpelez, and the heads of PEB, Paro Ytti, and the Ikoanian TV-network IATB, Opan Avarez. The invitations said, that the event would start at 11 am, but it was already 11:15 am and nobody really knew what was causing the delay. You saw some representatives from Sedunn and Sallodesia shifting in their seat in the background, but eventually a double door on the opposite site of the room was opened and all three of the awaited persons came in.

Ytti and Avarez were sitting down on the side first. Tables were in front of them, on which laid a piece of paper with a table on it. The table contained all registered participants for the Pacivision Song Contest 2022 on the left side and on the right an empty column. Valpelez went to a lectern and looked at the crowd of press workers with his typical stern look. “Welcome ladies and gentlemen and apologies for the delay. There were problems with traffic in the inner city”, he explained while looking disapprovingly at Ytti. Indeed, the PEB chief has been too late, because he planned his trip from the airport to the city hall very tightly and, as expected, it didn’t add up.
“But now we are here and look forward to the following event. As you might know, Gralois was chosen to venue the next Pacivision Song Contest. Today’s meeting will show us, in which running-order the countries that registered for this contest, will participate. Mr. Ytti will tell you more about it in a minute. I would like to just give you some general information on Gralois’ role with this contest. I am pleased to announce, that we have taken all necessary measures to guarantee the utmost security and best traffic conditions for this competition, while also keeping this thing under budget. We have planned with expenses that go beyond 10 million TSP-$, but we will barely spend 7 million. This gives us more wiggle room for other projects of this city, e.g. the ‘Beautiful Flowers Fund’, which has made and still makes the parks and public gardens of Gralois one of the nicest looking tourist destinations in all of Ikoania.”

Mr. Valpelez was going on more about minor details on how Gralois plans to make the PSC in its city a success. This included shuttle services to the venue for all artists and spectators, plans of a local investor for a new hotel being built near the Century Arena and the close cooperation between the city of Gralois with other Ikoanian cities and municipalities for the shooting of the postcards. After 15 minutes, he eventually set the stage for Paro Ytti, who explained how the running-order will be decided. “It’s as easy as taking a country out of the left bowl and then taking a starting position out of the right bowl. However first, Ikoania will be allowed to freely select their starting position before all this is done. We have already prepared something for that of course…”
Ytti went behind the aforementioned bowls and after some rummaging around held up a single piece of paper: “As you all can see, I’m holding up a paper with ‘Ikoania’ written on it. Please pay attention to how the designers at IATB were making sure, the design for this year’s contest is also on those paper strips.”
Indeed it was. The strips were dark blue, little dots of white were all over the place, in the middle the name of the country was written bold in a light grey. On the back not visible to the audience, one would see the official logo of the contest with the satellite.
“Now let’s see, what position they chose to start in…”
After some more rummaging, Ytti was eventually holding up another paper strip with a “10” written on it. “Position no. 10, so quite late in the evening. We will see, if that leads to more or less points on the 28th. By the way, I’m sure you are all interested in who will present the competition to you. Three wonderful moderators, I can tell you. Next to Polla Altez, who sadly cannot be present today, I may present to you Estella Calvelez and Marco Zarez as your hosts. And here they are for their first official task: Allocating the rest of the countries. Big applause, please.”

Although hesitantly, the journalists were indeed applauding while the doors were opened again with Estrella and Marco coming inside.
After a quick “And here we are. I think, we should just get this thing rolling quickly, it has been enough of the suspense, right?” by Estrella, both were drawing and reading out, who will start on which position in the PSC final later this month.

“Transsuneria!” – “No. 1!”
“Besern!” – “No. 3!”
“Sedunn!” – “No. 7!”
“Esfalsa!” – “No. 8!”
“Izaakia!” – “No. 4!”
“Arnchow!” – “No. 11!”
“GI-Land!” – “No. 6!”
“Frost Empire!” – “No. 2!”
“Snolland!” – “No. 9!”
“And last, but not least…Beepee!” – “They should be No. 5 and….Yes, they are!”

“With that the running-order is decided. Could someone from over there…”, Marco was motioning towards the tables, “…read out the order again, just to make sure everything was copied correctly?”, the co-host Zarez asked.
“Of course everything will be correctly-shmorrectly here, Marco”, Opan Avarez answered before reading out the running-order again:
“First is Transsuneria, followed by the Frost Empire, Beepee, Izaakia, Besern, GI-Land, Sedunn, Esfalsa, Snolland, us – Ikoania and lastly Arnchow. I will not lie, I heard some of the entries already together with Mr. Ytti and: It will be hard.” Before Marco could take over again, Opan had to add “That’s what she said” and a good laugh, that was met with another disapproving look of the Graloisian mayor.
“Right…”, Estrella was trying to defuse the situation. “With that the allocation draw of this year’s Pacivision Song Contest is over. We all thank you for coming here and look forward to the event.”