Latvian Television has named Riga’s Skonto Hall as the venue for the 2002 Eurovision Song Contest

Latvian Television has named Riga’s Skonto Hall as the venue for the 2002 Eurovision Song Contest, which the country won the right to host after its entrant, Marija Naumova, triumphed in Tallinn earlier in the year. Latvia’s executive producer of the event, Arvids Babris, said Skonto Hall met the stringent requirements for the technically complicated show. He added that it was also one of the best candidates from a security point of view, saying police had weighed in strongly in its favor. The center is named after the Skonto conglomerate that helped finance the facility. The company, with 100 million dollars annually in sales in recent years, is also linked to the country's best known soccer team, FC Skonto Riga. The Eurovision Song Contest, which is annually watched by as many as 300 million TV viewers around the world, will be the biggest international event ever held in this Baltic state.