Eurovision 2018: The Year of moaning and the unexpected changes

This year’s national finals have been completed and the 43 countries’ representatives for Lisbon are now chosen. This year, following the announcements of artists and songs many complaints and grumbling had arisen. We will present to you in detail all these reactions below.

43 songs will compete on the Altice Arena stage aiming to win the coveted prize at the Eurovision Song Contest.

Even though we are 58 days away from the inauguration of ESC 2018, there is already a record of nagging from participants in national finals, even from countries representatives to this year’s contest.

Let’s start seeing one of the events that caused upset and turmoil in the fans, filling social media with comments.

Armenia

On the day when the participants in this year’s Depi Evratesil 2018 were announced, many fans preconceived Tamar Kaprelian with “Poison (Ari Ari)” as the big favorite to win. Tamar and her song were much loved by fans, making her one of the favorites to win this year’s Depi Evrasil 2018 and to represent Armenia in contest.

However, her failure to qualify from Depi Evrasil‘s first semifinals to the Final triggered reactions, resulting in many fans talking about a deliberate  production’s move. They complained because, while they cast their vote, they did not receive a message that it has been counted. The answer came from production stating that everything went smoothly and there was no problem with the viewers’ polls. Tamar won the 6th place in the 1st semifinals of Depi Evratesil, losing the qualification for  only 2 points.

Ireland

Ryan O’Shaughnessy is this year’s Irish representative at the 63rd  Eurovision Song Contest, with the song “Together“. However, a scene in Ryan’s video clip was enough to light up the blood. In particular, Ryan has posted a tweet on his personal Twitter page, saying that the Russians will ban their participation because of the gay feature in the “Together” Video Clip. However, EBU‘s regulations state that all participating countries are required to display all appearances on the Eurovision stage. No  official announcement been made until now.

Iceland

On March 3, “Söngvakeppnin 2018” was completed with Ari Ólafsson to have won with the song “ Our Choice”. In the first round of the Final’s vote, Dagur Sigurðsson won 44.730 points leaving with Ari Ólafsson with 35.861 in second place, after the audience and the jury votes’ offsetting. In the second round of voting, the two candidates competed in the Super Final for the golden ticket to Lisbon.

Here, however, there was a change as Ari Ólafsson came up with 44,919 and Dagur finished  second with 39,474.

The following day, many were those who complained to RÚV that their votes did not count during the Super Final. The answer came from Vodafone, saying that all messages and phone calls were counted and there was no problem.

Latvia

One of the big names of Supernova 2018, Markus Riva, competes in the 2nd Semi-Final and all fans believe in his definite qualification to the Final. The 2nd Semi Final ends, but we do not have Markus’ qualification. A few days later, Latvia’s national broadcaster, LTV, announced Markus Riva’s award to the Supernova Final, saying there  was a mistake in  votes counting the, and that this was due to a serious problem  in the online semi-final vote.

Belarus

Alekssev with the song “Forever” is the one who will travel to Lisbon representing  Belarus at this year’s ESC. Since the announcement of his participation in the National Final of the country, with this particular song, the nagging began immediately. The singer had already delivered  his piece in its Russian version in several concerts since  last May, with many videos being released on the internet, which is explicitly forbidden by the EBU regulations.

The problem began when many of the contestants considered his participation unfair , threatening by withdrawing their own participation. Indeed, one of the contestants in the national final, Sophia Lapina, has declared her withdrawal from her country’s national selection process.

Eventually, after making changes to the track, Alekssev normally participated in the National Final of Belarus and he will normally compete with “Forever” on the Altice Arena stage, although at  it was previously announced that if he had won the national selection, he would go to Lisbon with another piece.

Ukraine

Over the past few days, the EBU has issued a statement according to which Ukraine’s public broadcaster may quit its operation by the end of next month, which would put in high risk the country’s participation in the Lisbon contest. After a while, the Ukranian public broadcaster ,via its Twitter account,announced that they are continuing their preparations for the Eurovision Song Contest and that no withdrawal of Ukraine from the contest is possible. The same thing was done in the end by the EBU, casting out the black clouds of Melovin‘s dubious presence in Lisbon.

Finland

Long before Saara Aalto‘s announcement as the country’s represenantive, YLE, had begun to receive songs for this year’s UMK18. 300 entries were submitted , but all of a sudden, YLE decided to make a direct assignment to Saara Aalto.

This has resulted in the negative reaction of musicians and lyricists who have submitted their songs to the UMK as well as of the Finnish audeince. YLE cleared up its position stating  that this is not going to happen again and it will be clear from the outset the way of choosing the artist who will represent Finland in the contest. The YLE’s factors also think that  Saara Aalto is the ideal choice for Eurovision and that this choice was made to avoid the country’s past bad results in the contest.