Post Eurovision depression – it’s a bitch! Eurovision was almost a month ago (*sob*), the next national final won’t be until at least November (*wail*) and Junior Eurovision is still months away (*wah*). And believe us, the team at wiwibloggs are suffering from it just as much as the rest of y’all. But moping is soooo not our style. We’ve decided to shake off the fug and create our own contest. Readers, welcome to the second annual wiwivision – our alternative song contest.

wiwivision 2016 Trailer

In the lead-up to the real thing, everyone on the team analyses all the entries in minute detail. We scoff at song choices, we bemoan the chosen singers and tear apart staging decisions. Now it’s time to turn the tables. Our correspondents have each adopted a country and selected a hypothetical entry for the song contest. In a bid to maintain some degree of reality, we’re keeping the structure used by the EBU in 2016 but with some tweaks — same 42 countries, two semi finals and one grand final of 26 qualifiers. Unlike 2015, there won’t be any automatic qualifiers. No delegations contribute extra towards wiwivision, so they’re all going to have slum it out in the semis. Aside from that, we’re essentially reliving Eurovision 2016 but with our own personal song choices.

Entries

To make things interesting, we’ve banned past Eurovision and national final entrants in so far as possible. We want to go on a new musical journey and hopefully y’all will hop on for the ride. Each act must have some connection to the country they’re representing, although we’re allowing certain countries to borrow from their neighbours if necessary (hi San Marino). When it comes to song selection, we’re a tad more flexible than the EBU. Songs must be original, but we’ve scrapped the three minute rule and the window within which songs must be released is 1 June 2015 to 31 May 2016. Basically, we’ve a year’s worth of great music to choose from. There’s no excuse for us to mess up, but y’all should totally judge us if we do… otherwise we’ll be judging you!

Voting

Just like last year, we’re going to carry out the voting similar to Sweden’s Melodifestivalen and, as of 2016, Eurovision. Who knew we were such trendsetters? The juries (i.e. wiwibloggs correspondents) will give their points in the same manner as at the song contest and then the public vote will be added on at the end. And this is where y’all come into the equation. There will be reader polls for both semis and the grand final. The results from these polls will account for 50% of the total vote, with the Wiwi Jury accounting for the remainder. To paraphrase Queen Loreen – you got the power!

Launch Dates

For those of you wetting yourselves with excitement, stay calm. We’re launching the first semi-final tomorrow, 7 June. The second semi final will follow two days later, on Thursday 9 June. The grand final is set for Saturday 18 June. Forty-two songs will battle it out for your votes, whilst the members of wiwibloggs watch tentatively as y’all rip into our selections. Let’s do this!

wiwivision 2015

Ireland won the inaugural wiwivision with Markus Feehily and “Love Is A Drug”. He only managed to finish ninth with the juries, but a massive televote saw him knock Austrlia’s Dami Im and Georgia’s Tamta into second and third places respectively. Belgium’s Selah Sue and the United Kingdom’s Olly Murs completed the top five.

Follow all the wiwivision 2016 action.