EuroMusic Song Contest 21

The EuroMusic Song Contest 21 was the twenty-first edition of the EuroMusic Song Contest. The host country was Bulgaria, that won the previous edition, with the song If love was a crime. This was the first time that Bulgaria hosted this contest. This edition took place in the capital of Bulgaria: Sofia.

At the end of the grand final, it was clear that the UK won this edition. It was their second victory in the contest. Russia finnished at the second place, with just two points less. Germany ended at the third place.

Location
Straight after the Bulgarian victory in the previous edition, BNT announced that they would host this edition. They said that they were in touch with some Bulgarian cities.

Some days later, the EBU announced that they prefer the Arena Armeec as venue, with a capacity of 17.000 people. A bit later, it was clear that the Bulgarian broadcaster was in contact this venue and the Kolodruma, in Plovdiv.

Later on, the Bulgarian broadcaster revealed the official logo, where Sofia was announced as host city.

Number of participants
Since the seventh edition the EBU announced to put a maximum at the number of participants. In the seventh and eighth edition, eighteen countries were able to participate.

Because the introduction of the semi finals, there is no maximum of participating countries. However, since the seventeenth edition the EBU announced that they would put a new maximum of countries. This meant that 41 countries were able to sign for a participation. This means that each semi final would have 20 countries, plus the host nation (who qualify automatically). Until now, they never reached this limit.

Running order
There are specific rules about how a country gets his running order.

The host country will have a random number. The rest of the countries will be split in to groups (first- and second half). This will happen fully random. Later on, a team will create a running order to make the show as interesting as possible.

Song
Each country sends one song to the contest. There are no rules about the language of the song, but the song can't be longer than five minutes.

Voting rules
After that all the participating countries have sang their song, each single country awards a set of points. The country who gets the most amount of points wins the contest. If two or more countries receive the same number of points, the country that received from the most countries points, will be ranked higher. If that is also the same, then the country who have the highest rank of a country, will be ranked higher.

Returning artists
The contest featured eight representatives who also previously performed as lead vocalists for the same countries.

12 points
Below is a summary of all 12 points received:

12 points
Below is a summary of all 12 points received:

Grand Final
https://scorewiz.eu/scoreboard/view/333598/euromusic-song-contest-21--grand-final

12 points
Below is a summary of all 12 points received:

Returning countries

 * Armenia.jpg Armenia - Because of the territorial dispute about the Artsakh region between Armenia and previous host Azerbaijan, the Amenian broadcatser decided to skip the twentieth edition. They announced directly that they were returing the next edition.
 * Italy.jpg Italy - The Italian broadcaster announced to return to the contest.

Withdrawing countries

 * Estonia.jpg Estonia - ERR announced that Estonia wouldn't participate in the edition because of the dissapointing results in the previous editions.
 * Netherlands.jpg Netherlands - This country wasn't on the official list of participating countries, published by the EBU. Until now, they took part in every edition.
 * Poland.jpg Poland - The Polish broadcaster decided to withdraw from the contest, due to a lack of interest from the Polish public.