Season 23

The **Regions Song Contest 23** was the **23rd** edition of the discord contest Regions Song Contest. The contest took place in the city of **Uzhhorod**  Zakarpattia, Ukraine  after  **Zakarpattia**'s win in Season 22 with the song “Witch”.

It was the **third** time Ukraine , had hosted any versions of the contest, the first times being in  Kharkiv and  Kyiv for Season 02 and Season 04. This season consisted of two semi-finals held on January 1st & 2nd and the grand final on January 16th 2022.

All the live shows were hosted on YouTube as well as presented on the Discord server. Fifty-One entries took part in the **twenty-third** season of the contest. Each region had to compete with one song.

The Top 05 juries of the twenty-second edition was part of the **Big 05** and so on, was automatically qualified for the Grand Final.

The Big 05 regions were :

* **Zakarpattia - Host Region**
* Attica
* Bay Of Plenty (replacing  Nelson)
* Hong Kong (replacing  Guangdong)
* Uppland

The winner was   **Hong Kong** with the song **"Parasite"** performed by **Roniit**, **Crywolf** & **Away** with **215** points.

### Debuting Regions

 Araucania,  Bay Of Plenty,  Canterbury,  Cornwall,  La Paz,  Martinique,  Rodrigues,  Tadjourah,  Yarovslavl.

### Host City

Following  Zakarpattia's win in Uppsala, the hosting of  Zakarpattia was very quickly announced to happen in **Uzhhorod**. **Uzhhorod**, previously and historically known as **Ungvár** is a city and municipality in western  Ukraine, at the border with  Slovakia and near the border with  Hungary. The city is located nearly within the same distance to the three nearest seas: the Baltic, the Adriatic and the Black Sea (650-690 km) making it the most inland city in this part of Europe. It is the administrative center of  Zakarpattia Oblast, as well as the administrative center of the Uzhhorod Raion (district) within the oblast. Population: 115,542 (2021 est.).

### Arena

No arena were chosen to host this 23rd edition.

### Hosts

The hosts of the **23rd** edition were :

* **Artem Pivovarov**,  Ukrainian singer. He represented  Kyiv and  Kharkiv respectively in seasons 03 and 11, ending up not making it to the final and getting the 10th place in final.

* **Kateryna Pavlenko** is a  Ukrainian singer, composer, and folklorist. She is the lead vocalist of the Ukrainian electro-folk band Go\_A, who got the third place for  Kyiv in the third spin off.

* **Grimes** is a  Canadian musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer of  French,  Italian and  **Ukrainian** descent. Her music has incorporated elements of varied styles, including dream pop, electronic, R&B, and hip hop, while touching on science fiction and feminist themes. She has released five studio albums. She has represented her native  British Columbia in Seasons 10 and 10, ending up on the scoreboard's left side both times.

* **Rezz**,  Ukrainian-born,  Canadian DJ and record producer from Niagara Falls,  Ontario. She released her debut EP, *Insurrection* in 2015 through OWSLA's sub-label Nest HQ. In 2016, she signed with a record label, and released follow-ups *The Silence is Deafening* and *Something Wrong Here*. On August 4, 2017, Rezazadeh released her debut studio album, *Mass Manipulation*, with its follow up, *Certain Kind of Magic*, released in 2018. Rezz represented  Florida and  New York in Seasons 13 and 20, failing to qualify both times.

### Results

#### Golden Ticket

After  Rogaland's disqualification due to internal problems (their taste card was invalid), the **RBU** decided that, this season, one more song would get its ticket for the Grand Final. Thus, a **new voting** was made, each delegation being able to vote for 2 songs out of all the Non-Qualified ones, and  **Riga** was then declared a **winner**.