The second rehearsal of Malta’s entry in the Eurovision Song Contest in Dusseldorf left the Maltese team very disappointed with the visuals shown on screen during Glen Vella’s performance yesterday.

“Visually, the set-up leaves much to be desired,” Anton Attard, Public Broadcasting Services CEO and head of the Maltese delegation, told The Times.

“We are not happy at all with the visuals. We expected much better from the broadcaster’s production team here,” he said. He expressed hope that the demanded adjustments will be delivered.

“We’ve asked for crucial visual changes after the first rehearsal but today we actually got a worse situation,” Mr Attard added.

The final rehearsal on the stage of the Düsseldorf Arena will take place on Monday, a day before the semi-final show on May 10. However, the Maltese delegation is expected to be in discussion with the organisers again over the weekend.

The huge on-screen visuals are considered to be an important part of the song package as millions of people would base their voting on what they see on the night.

Notwithstanding these major hiccups, Glen Vella and his team – made up of two male dancers and three female backing vocalists – gave a very good performance of the song One Life, penned by Fleur Balzan and composed by Paul Giordimaina, and the sound was deemed to be top-notch.

Despite expressing his obvious disappointment, Mr Vella was still upbeat: “I am living my dream and enjoying every moment – my job here is to give a good performance. I am lucky to be surrounded by a strong team who are working hard to ensure that our wishes are complied with,” he said.

He said he was just focusing on using the space on stage and was not at all daunted by the enormity of the stage “even though it is huge”, he joked.

On the semi-final night he will be 11th performer to sing out of 19 contestants and will have to place among the top 10 to earn the coveted position in the Eurovision final on May 14.