The
Eurovision Song Contest 2003 was the 48th annual
Eurovision Song Contest. The contest took place in
Riga,
Latvia on 24 May 2003, following
Marie N's win in the
2002 contest with the song "
I Wanna". It was the first win and hosting of the competition for Latvia with only their third participation after debuting at the
2000 contest.
Latvijas Televizija (LTV) chose the
Skonto Hall as the venue after conducting a bidding process among several cities and venues in Latvia. The hosts for the contest were the previous year's winner Marie N and former
Latvian representative at the 2000 contest,
Renars Kaupers, who competed in the contest as part of the band
Brainstorm. The design of the contest was built around the theme "Magical rendez-vous", which represented the meeting of the various European nations coming to Latvia and encountering Latvia's versatile landscapes. Twenty-six countries participated, which saw the return of
Iceland,
Ireland,
Netherlands,
Norway and
Poland after having been relegated from competing the previous year,
Portugal returning to the contest after withdrawing the previous year, while
Ukraine participated in the contest for the first time.
Denmark,
Finland,
Lithuania,
Macedonia and
Switzerland were required to withdraw due to their poor results in the 2002 contest.