ETSC 5: Signing Up!

ETSC – Every year, the summer is the calm after the storm so it’s the perfect time to resume the highly anticipated the Eurovision Times Song Contest! Each one of you can represent an European country and get to send a song and then vote in a fake Eurovision! Signing up opens tomorrow!

Each summer, a good number of regular readers stay around for different reasons (they don’t get breaks from work or don’t go on holidays…) but there aren’t much news to keep us going. So the last few years we introduced all sort of games. The Eurovision Times Awards (Fridas) and the Douze Points Trivia Quiz kept us going in 2013 and Fridas have made come-backs the past four years. Two years ago, a lot of you asked for a fake Eurovision where each one of us would send songs and get to vote. And that was it: the Eurovision Times Song Contest, from then on known as ETSC.

We had four editions, two in 2014: July 2014 and August 2014, both won by France; the third edition was held in July 2015 and won by the United-Kingdom; the fourth edition was held in Augusut 2015 and was won by Austria, with the song “Leya” performed by Icelandic-born Thorsteinn Einarson. For more information, you can discover our new page dedicated to the contest, with its history, all songs participating and the rankings here. You can also find it by clicking on the “Specials” section of the site, in the top menu in the red box, just under the site’s name. “ETSC 5 – July 2016″, it will be officially held in Salzburg and as for venue it’ll be the Salzburgarena! And the host will be, as a nod to Eurovision 2014, Conchita Wurst with the help of Elyas M’Barek in the greenroom! The logo for it is inspired by the winner again:

Rules: for this contest, you need to sign up chosing one European country. Once the country will be confirmed as yours for this edition, you’ll be able to send a song officially from the country by email only and it cannot be more than 6 years old (this 2010’s decade). However, there are no language rules but it’s up to you to consider if other members will be nice or not to your song based on the language… Since it’s an online contest, there are no time limits and the song can be as long as you want, and performed by as many people you want. But it needs to be recent and definitely related to the country you’re representing one way or another. For each entry, I’ll do a bit of research to make sure your entry is playable, but you can send me some links with your song to help me make sure. Also, you must make sure the song is available online on  a platform so that every one can hear it. A promotion video is only an extra bonus but not mandatory. Last but not least, as seen in the polls the song can not have taken part in Eurovision or a national final but for the artist we get to a different rule. ESC artists are allowed for “small countries” (debatable which, but often I’m open to discussion with you) and NF and ETSC artists are allowed for all. Don’t forget, ETSC is also about discovering new music for us all! Considering the close results for ESC artists I thought for this edition this was the most senstive approach. In general, everything has to be talked out with me in private. Depending on the number of participants, probably not all countries will be taken again.

Once everyone has sent its entry, they’ll be revealed on ET and the voting period will be open. You’ll vote by email to me and to make sure my personal votes are fair (and that I don’t change them to the last minute in case it’s a close race), I will email mine to the first voter, whoever that is. Once everyone voted, I will reveal the votes in a dramatic finish and we’ll see which song will be crown our own summer song (July 2016)!

There is no signing up article on ET and the official opening time to select your country for July 2016 is officially… tomorrow! So Friday July 1st at midnight CET! (To be precise, that’s in the night between Friday and Saturday). You’ll be able to select by emailing me on artemismorgan@hotmail.com only! You can send up to a Top 5 of your favorite countries so that, if you’ve sent your email early enough but your #1 country is already chosen, you get your second pick and so on and so forth. Afterwards, you have an entire week to decide on your song, the reveal will be either Friday or Saturday night, depending on what’s people’s favorite time for it.

In bold if your song has ben approved!

#1 Daniel (former winner): Netherlands
#2 Sekhmet Morgan (host): France
#3 Dimitris: Ukraine (pick 1)
#4 Mermaid: Turkey (pick 1)
#5 Razvan: Cyprus (pick 1)
#6 Hjallis: Finland (pick 1)
#7 Tecku: Ireland (pick 1)
#8 Matt D: United Kingdom (pick 1)
#9 Anders: Denmark (pick 1)
#10 Tehoe: Germany (pick 1)
#11 Gregor: Sweden (pick 2)
#12 Marc P: Iceland (pick 1)
#13 Guitar: Norway (pick 1)
#14 Donnie: Belgium (pick 2)
#15 Cathal: Luxembourg (pick 7)
#16 Martin: Poland (pick 4)
#17 Dino: Greece (pick 4)
#18 Luke: Italy (pick 4)
#19 Arpatilaos1981: Switzerland (pick 5)
#20 Shevek: Portugal (pick 1)
#21 Ren: – (withdrawn)
#22 Michos: Austria (pick 4)
#23 Franco: Spain (pick 3)
#24 Patrick: Hungary (pick 2)
#25 Mylor: Estonia (pick 2)
#26 Caolán: Russia (pick 2)
#27 William: Malta (pick 1)
#28 Andy: Macedonia (pick 2)
#29 Mike: – (withdrawn)
#30 Pablo: Georgia (pick 5)
And a special guest this year with webmaster #31 Jade: Australia!

Post-opening night picks
#32 Nick: Lithuania (pick 1)
#33 Avat: Armenia (pick 1)
#34 Bay: Czech Republic (pick 1)
#35 Cyphermusic: Montenegro (pick 1)
#36 Oxi: Lebanon (pick 1)
#37 Elmar96: Azerbaijan (pick 1)
#38 Blackbirdbraille50: Israel (pick 2)
#39 Randomvan: Latvia (pick 1)
#40 Hulluna: Romania (pick 1)
#41 Niclas: Bosnia & Herzegovina (pick 2)
#42 Robin: Bulgaria (pick 1)
#43 Togravus: Tunisia (pick 1)
#44 Rob: Slovakia (pick 1)
#45 Ovidarch: Croatia (pick 1)
#46 Steve: Monaco (pick 5)
#47 Sedapsi: Belarus (pick 1)
You can still register and send your song until Friday 8th at noon CET!