ETSC 13: 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 this Sunday!

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 sorts 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 five years. Four 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’ve therefore had 12 editions of ETSC, 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; the fifth edition was held in July 2016 and was won by Israel; the sixth edition was held in August 2016 and won by Denmark; the 7th edition was held in July 2017 and was won again by France; the 8th edition was held in August 2017, and it was the first one that went “blind”, meaning people did not know who sent what. It crowned Greece. In 2018, German-speaking countries got their revenge as Switzerland won ETSC 9 and Germany won ETSC 10! Last year, Sweden and Italy, two historically big countries of Eurovision, finally won their first ETSC. For more information, you can discover our new page dedicated to the contest, with its history, all songs participating and the rankings here. A specific article for Top 10 stats was also open 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 13 – July 2020” will be officially held in Torino after French-speaking song “Toukassé” won:

This is a blind edition: you’ll have to send everything through me. In this article, I’ll only post numbers of people who will take part. We will discover which countries are played with during the reveal of the draw as well as the HoD who will take part!

The old rules remain. Rules: for this contest, you need to sign up choosing 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 5 years old (this 2015 at the oldest). 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 FdlC artists are allowed for all. Don’t forget, ETSC is also about discovering new music for us all! 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. However, you’ll have a couple of days to pick your song once a country is being attributed to you, so don’t rush! Since I have postcards to do, I’d rather not have change of songs now! So take the time to be sure!

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 first summer song! Once you’ve voted, you can not change your votes (especially since some people drop hints of their own votes on the posts)!

For those interested, all songs used in ETSC and its sister contests (used during the rest of the year and featuring a lot of similar players) are all packed here to check if your entry has been used before: https://virtualfestivalofsongs.wordpress.com/archive/

This is the signing up article on ET and the official opening time to select your country for July 2020 is officially… Sunday 5th at 8 PM CET! You’ll be able to select by emailing me on artemismorgan@hotmail.com only! You can send up to a Top 10 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 until Wednesday 8h at noon CET to decide on your song! We’ll do the big reveal of songs on the following weekend.

Number of emails to work on: 0

Number of approved Hod/Country: 45 (+1 who quit)

Number of HoD without a country: 0

Number of approved songs: 45