Europrediction 2018 🇵🇹 The Facebook #Eurovision Marathon game: what we learned from your votes

EUROPE – This year we decided to keep the Europrediction 2018 poll closed until the real rehearsals kick off in order for you to be able to vote based on actual materials and after all promo events concluded throughout Europe and Israel. But in the meantime we launched the Facebook #Eurovision Marathon Game in which wee asked you two predict the potentials of each country for each semi final to qualify, and then to enter the top ten and win the Grand Final. No surprise: Israel is by far the top favourite of the Facebook followers of oikotimes.com.

Based on your votes the ten countries which have the most potentials to qualify are: Greece, Israel, Czech Republic, Belgium, Estonia, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Finland, Austria and Azerbaijan.

The second semi final marathon voting conclude and based on your votes the potential qualifiers are: Australia, Sweden, Ukraine, Norway, The Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, Russia, Hungary, Latvia.

In the Grand Final, top ten potentials have the following countries: Israel, Sweden, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Belgium, Greece, Australia, Ukraine, Cyprus. In the final 24h poll which of the top ten countries has the potential to win: Israel wins by landslide of 68%.

The team of oikotimes.com is gearing up preparations to be ready on time to launch the revamped and secure version of the 2018 Europrediction. Our call for international juries from the participating countries has successfully set once again and we expect that around April 25th to be ready. Stay tuned as always at www.oikotimes.com/vote

CountryFirst Semi FinalCountrySecond Semi Final Grand FinalWinner
🇨🇾 Cyprus76🇷🇴 Romania26🇮🇱 Israel8668
🇭🇷 Croatia28🇲🇪 Montenegro16🇧🇬 Bulgaria7640
🇧🇬 Bulgaria74🇸🇲 San Marino8🇨🇿 Czech Republic7633
🇦🇿 Azerbaijan64🇬🇪 Georgia 12🇪🇪 Estonia7433
🇨🇿 Czech Republic85🇲🇩 Moldova28🇬🇷 Greece6932
🇬🇷 Greece90🇦🇺 Australia89🇦🇺 Australia6331
🇦🇲 Armenia38🇲🇹 Malta29🇨🇾 Cyprus5429
🇦🇱 Albania23🇸🇪 Sweden88🇸🇪 Sweden7725
🇫🇮 Finland70🇷🇸 Serbia38🇧🇪 Belgium7321
🇮🇪 Ireland23🇺🇦 Ukraine87🇺🇦 Ukraine598
🇱🇹 Lithuania25🇸🇮 Slovenia40🇫🇮 Finland41
🇮🇸 Iceland 14🇦🇹 Austria37
🇦🇿 Azerbaijan25
🇪🇪 Estonia77🇳🇴 Norway72🇳🇴 Norway47
🇮🇱 Israel88🇩🇰 Denmark67🇩🇰 Denmark44
🇧🇪 Belgium83🇳🇱 The Netherlands70🇳🇱 The Netherlands39
🇨🇭 Switzerland27🇵🇱 Poland64🇵🇱 Poland28
🇦🇹 Austria67🇷🇺 Russia47🇷🇺 Russia26
🇧🇾 Belarus49.6🇭🇺 Hungary47🇭🇺 Hungary21
🇲🇰 FYR Macedonia39🇱🇻 Latvia43🇱🇻 Latvia18
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ESPREPARTY 2018 🇪🇸 21 acts shine on stage in Madrid

SPAIN – Acts from 21 of this year’s participating countries performed at the ESPreParty, held this Saturday, 21st of April, in Spain’s capital Madrid. Spanish duo Amaia y Alfred hosted to their competitors at the event, which was presented by Soraya Arnelas, the singer who represented Spain at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2009.

It is the second time Madrid hosts a preparty to the Eurovision Song Contest organised by fan site Eurovision-Spain.com. Broadcaster RTVE aired the ESPreParty live starting at 22:00 CEST from La Riviera of Madrid. The concert was also available at RTVE.es/Eurovision.

Just days after a highly successful 10th edition of Eurovision in Concert, which traditionally took place in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, artists across Europe are repacking their suitcases for their next gig. Participating acts included Eugent Bushpepa (Albania), Michael Schulte (Germany), Sevak Khanagyan (Armenia), Sennek (Belgium), Alekseev (Belarus), Mikolas Josef (Czech Republic), Lea Sirk (Slovenia), Madame Monsieur (France), Ryan O’Saughnessy (Ireland), Laura Rizzotto (Latvia), DoReDos (Moldova), SuRie (United Kingdom), Eye Cue (F.Y.R. Macedonia), Jessika & Jenifer Brening (San Marino), ZiBBZ (Switzerland) and Cláudia Pascoal from the host country, Portugal.

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April 22 📆 the latest #Eurovision headlines

🇩🇪 Simple Minds, Sasha and Namika will be added to the special concert / party which will be broadcast by NDR before and after the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest. Those three artists will join Max Giesinger, Lotte, Revolverheld, Mary Roos – Represented Germany at the Eurovision Song Contest 1972 and 1984, Mike Singer, voXXclub – Participated in the German selection process for Eurovision 2018 in the line up of performances.

🇲🇪 Milena Đurđić has been revealed as the designer for Vanja Radovanović’s outfit for the Eurovision Song Contest 2018. Milena said: “Vanja is a young music artist with a special artistic style. I repeatedly listened to ‘Inje’, paying attention to both text and music, as well as to Vanjina’s emotional interpretation. I made several sketches of conceptual solutions, and then we, Vanja and his wife, analysed and exchanged opinions.”

🇩🇪 France’s Madame Monsieur have won the third episode of ESC-Songcheck, scoring 9.8 points from the jury and the public vote. Australia and Norway followed in the scoreboard.

🇳🇴 Last night Norway’s state broadcaster NRK aired the second programme of “Adresse Lisboa” — its Eurovision 2018 preview show. Professional and public jury agreed that the winner of the evening was Austria’s Cesár Sampson.

🇳🇴 NRK announced new dancing team for Alexander Rybak for Lisbon stage presentation. One of his new dancers/backing vocalists in Lisa Børud, who is famous for being a former Christian child star and having sold over 120 000 albums in Norway. She finished fourth in the popular TV competition show Stjernekamp last year. Other dancers and backing vocalists are Lene Kokai Flage from Bergen, Jens Jeffry Trinidad as a choreographer and dancer and Frode Vassel as a backing vocalist. Also joining Rybak on stage is Alvaro Estrella as both dancer and backing vocalist. He was Eric Saade’s dancer in 2011, Sergey Lazarev’s dancer in 2016 and Robin Bengtsson’s dancer in 2017. He also participated in the 2014 edition of Melodifestivalen.

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Portugal 2018 🇵🇹 did just Isaura attack Netta from Israel?

PORTUGAL – It’s no secret that Portugal as a country and its artists as mentality, were never keen to the idea of fast food music and they we’re always stick to good quality music almost always based on tradition. After all Portuguese music has its own unique identity, something which is recognised internationally.

Isaura, the composer of the 2018 Portuguese entry, spoke recently about Netta’s song “Toy”. Speaking to Blitz, re affirmed her statement to oikotimes.com interview that she was suppose to sing the Portuguese entry alone but it came out natural to her to give its to someone who inspired her despite her vocal imperfection.

Heer favourite song this year is the one from Czech Republic which she considers as a good fun song / cool song. But when asked about the Israeli song which is a hot favourite to win, Isaura said:

When I hear the Israeli song, I think: how is she going to do this live? It’s instantly what I think…

Isaura cannot believe that Netta can deliver the song live despite Netta’s excellent performances both in Tel Aviv and Amsterdam promo events.

We all remember of course what Salvador Sobral said last year after his victory in Kyiv and during the winner’s press conference, attacking the Swedish song as fast food song causing the reaction of Robin Bengtsson and Alex Florea from Romania.

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Sweden 🇸🇪 Eurovision world react upon Aviccii’s sudden death

SWEDEN – Tim Bergling better known by his stage name Avicii, was a Swedish musician, DJ, remixer and record producer. Bergling has been nominated twice for a Grammy Award, once for his work on “Sunshine” with David Guetta in 2012 and once for his song “Levels” in 2013.

Some of his most famous songs are “I Could Be the One” with Nicky Romero, “Wake Me Up”, “You Make Me”, “X You”, “Hey Brother”, “Addicted to You”, “The Days”, “The Nights”, “Levels”, “Waiting for Love”, “Without You” and “Lonely Together”. He released his debut studio album, True, in 2013.

It received generally positive reviews from music critics, peaked within the top ten in more than fifteen countries and topped the Australian, Swedish, Danish and US charts. In 2015, Bergling released his second studio album, Stories. On 10 August 2017, Avicii released an EP titled Avīci (01). He died on 20 April 2018 in Oman.

The EBU and SVT announced on 15 April that Bergling, along with ex-ABBA members Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, had composed the anthem for the Eurovision Song Contest 2013. The song was performed for the first time in the Final on 18 May.

😢 rest in peace Tim. Way too early.

A post shared by Måns Zelmerlöw (@manszelmerlow) on

Vila I Frid Tim ❤️ Tack för Musiken Ses igen i nästa

A post shared by D A N N Y S A U C E D O (@dannysaucedo) on

See you somewhere there Avicii … [*]

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Way too young to leave us ❤️

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💔 @avicii

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Greece 2018 🇬🇷 OGAE Greece meets with Yianna Terzi in a unique #Eurovision party

GREECE – Last night the members of the Greek official fan club for the Eurovision Song Contest, OGAE Greece held a party to meet with the Greek Eurovision representative, Yianna Terzi. In their annual meeting with the Greek representative the party gathered all members possible to attend and the venue (Omikro2) was a full house not only by fans but also from various celebrities.

Yianna Terzi arrived at Omikron2 with her team and she was once again a cheerful party girl. For those of us who know her, Yianna is not the severe motherland depicted in the video clip “Oneiro Mou” but she is a true party girl not hesitating to get a selfie with the fans and dance. She is truly living here dream by going to Eurovision. Alongside her team including the composer Aris Kalimeris and the legendary backing vocalist and one of the best vocal teachers in Greece, Victoria Chalkiti.

During the party which moved from the roof garden to indoors due to the sudden wind which stormed Athens, Yianna interacted with the fans and danced almost all Eurovision songs from the DJ set. The member son OGAE Greece wanted this way, to send their best wishes and support to Yianna and the Greek delegation. It is no secret that OGAE Greece has taken seriously their job in promoting the song in Europe in any way they can. This is why they recently announced they will do several targeted work to promote the song around Europe, despite Yianna not attending any promotional event in the continent this year.

special thanks to Andreas Angelopoulos from Greece for the contribution

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