The first act of the Eurobasket, to be held in Slovenia between 4 and 22 September 2013, will also see a presentation of the championship mascot Lipko and the Slovenian and English version of the championship anthem, as well as the first ever match to be staged in a natural cave.

The draw will be held in the Concert Hall, which can accommodate 650 people. The balls with the names of teams, to be divided into four six-strong groups, will be pulled out by championship ambassadors Rašo Nesterović, Ivo Daneu and Peter Vilfan plus Aljoša Žorga, Aleksader Volkov, Ibrahim Kutluay and Jorge Garbajosa.

Slovenia will sit in the second drum along with Lithuania, Greece and the UK. The first drum will feature Spain, France, Russia and Macedonia; the third Italy, Croatia, Germany and Montenegro; the fourth Finland, Poland, Ukraine, Bosnia-Herzegovina; the fifth Georgia, Belgium, Latvia and Turkey and the 6th the Czech Republic, Serbia, Israel and Sweden.

To secure a live broadcast of the event, two kilometres of optical fibre cables have been laid into the cave, Eurobasket 2013 director Aleš Križnar has said. Workers will also set up a ten-by-four-metre platform and a basketball court.

The draw will take 55 minutes. This, coupled with the conditions in the cave, where the air is at 100% relative humidity and the temperature is 8 degrees centigrade, means that the audience and guests will have to be dressed up warmly.

The event will be attended by VIP guests from Slovenia and abroad, including the mayors of the four cities to host the championship (Ljubljana, Celje, Jesenice, Koper), Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport Žiga Turk, FIBA and FIBA Europe officials as well as European basketball legends Arvidas Sabonis, Dino Menenghin and Aleksander Petrović. 150 journalists have been accredited for the event.