It’s the last day of 2016 and we decided to make some notes about the highlights of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.

But before we begin, from all the team here at Eurovision Ireland, we wish you a Happy New Year and may the odds be forever in your favour! 😉

Let’s begin…

As 2015 ended with Armenia and Albania already having their contestant, 2016 kicked-off with lots of national finals and internal selections.

When the selection process ended, forty-two countries remained to try to win the Eurovision Song Contest 2016!

While there were good news, there were some sad news also:

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia and Ukraine returned after absences from recent contests. Australia also returned again to compete for the second time.

Portugal withdrew and Romania was disqualified due to repeated non-payment of debts by their national broadcaster to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

The Eurovision Song Contest 2016 was the 61st edition of the Eurovision Song Contest and it took place in the Ericsson Globe in Stockholm, Sweden.

The contest was also the first to implement a voting system change since 1975: each country’s professional jury points were announced like before, while the results of each national televote were combined and announced in reverse order.

The first Semi-final was held on the 10th of May 2016, when 10 out of 18 contries qualified.

The 2nd Semi-final took place on the 12th of May 2016, where again 10 out of 18 countries qualified.

In the final (14th of May 2016), 42 countries participated, with Ukraine winning for the second time.

The winning song “1944” was sung by Jamala and it scored an impressive 534 points, followed by Australia – Dami Im – Sound Of Silence (511 points) and Russia – Sergey Lazarev – You Are the Only One (491 points).

After a lot of debating (and delayed announcements!) Kyiv was elected to be the host city for Eurovision Song Contest 2017.

October came and we found out that Romania will come back in 2017, Cyprus selcted Hovig as their representative, while The Netherlands chosed the band O’G3NE. Furthermore, we discovered that all in all 43 countries will compete in Ukraine – making it among the biggest Eurovisions ever!

November gave us other two contenders: Jana Burčeska from Macedonia and Blanche from Belgium.

In December, a total of 6 more acts were revealed: Diana Hajieva for Azerbaijan, Brendan Murray for Ireland, Nathan Trent for Austria, Artsvik for Armenia, Lindita for Albania and last name for this year came from Montenegro – Slavko Kalezić. We also heard our first song of the contest from Albania!

Before Christmas Malta revealed their 16 finalists.

The last day of 2017 ended with Finland publishing on their official youtube channel the videos for their 10 finalist.

Happy New Year everyone! We wish you all te best and don’t forget in 2017 to love yourself! 😉

Author: Bogdan Stefan

Source: Eurovision Ireland, eurovision.tv, wikipedia

Image Source: youtube capture, previous sources from Eurovision Ireland posts