European Song Festival

The European Song Festival is a song festival where countries around Europe send artists to compete in a competition of music. Each country has a jury which gives 12, 10, and 8-1 points to the countries they think deserve them (you cannot give two sets of points to the same country and cannot vote for your own country). The country with the most points by the end is declared the winner - and is selected as host for the next contest. In total, 21 countries have competed at least once in the contest. ESF was first established in December of 2018.

In the first contest, 15 countries confirmed by the end of confirmation and were set to compete, this later changed to 14. The first final was on the 24th March 2019. In the current contest, there are 16 countries set to compete. No date has been announced for the second contest

The most recent contest, the Europe Song Festival 6, was won by Norway (1st title) with 87 points.

Participation
If an Active IBC Member wishes to participate they must fulfil conditions as laid down by the rules of the contest.

Thirty-two countries have participated at least once. These are listed here alongside the contest in which they made their debut:

Hosts
There have been two selected hosts, and one official host of the European Song Festival. In December of 2018, as the contest was first established, it was selected that the host would be the United Kingdom. In mid January, the city of hosting was revealed to be London. However, due to issues with the British National Final, and reported corruption among the delegation lead to the British withdrawal. Thereafter, multiple nations bidded to host. The six nations were Portugal, The Netherlands, Czechia, France, Poland, and Estonia. After elimination and shortlisting, the Netherlands were selected to be the first host of European Song Festival. The host for the second edition is Sweden.

Major Incidents

 * In the first contest, the United Kingdom.png United Kingdom, at late notice, suddenly withdrew from the contest (and hosting duties) which caused a lot of controversy. The British Delegation was fined £100,000 reportedly.
 * In the second contest, the Netherlands.png Netherlands, at late notice, was forced to change their song as the initial song broke the rules. Their new song then went on to win the contest.