Mysterious Song Contest 31

Semi-finals dates
 Final dates
 Venue
 Presenter(s)
 Director
 Executive supervisor
 Host
 Opening act
 Interval act
 Number of entries
 Voting system
 Winning song

**Mysterious Song Contest** welcomes the world to  Finland for the 30th Edition.

The Mysterious Song Contest #31 will be the 31st edition of the annual Mysterious Song Contest Wikia. It will take place in the **Hartwall Arena**, located in Helsinki,  Finland, following the country's victory at the 30th edition with Venior performing "Sugar Rush". This will be the 01st time the country hosts the contest.

The contest is scheduled to consist of 02 semi finals and finally the grand final, with official dates for the semi finals being **05th November 2016** and the grand final being the **29th November 2016**. As of 28th October 2016, **50 countries** have announced their participation in the contest so far.

## Location

YLE  Finland, announced on **17th October 2016** that with the contest being held in  Finland that any city or arena that would like to host the contest would had seven days to apply to the broadcaster with their interest.

The following selection criteria were outlined for the selection of the host city:

* The venue must be covered with a capacity of at least 7,000 but ideally up to 10,000 attendees.
* An international press centre must be able to accommodate no less than 1,550 journalists.
* Venues must also be provided for the opening and closing ceremonies of at least 3,000 attendees.
* The host city must be able to guarantee the safety and security of participants, members of delegations and guests.
* The host city must provide a social program alongside their bid, showcasing the hospitality, originality, cultural values and identity of both the city and Australia.

     **Host City**

 Helsinki
 Helsinki
 Espoo
 Turku

The **Hartwall Arena** in Helsinki, which has a capacity of approximately 12,000 attendees, was announced as the host venue on 20th October 2016. This will be the Arena's 01st time hosting the contest.

## Presenters

On **24th Octover 2016**, YLE announced that Benjamin Peltonen and Saara Aalto will be the hosts of the 31st contest. Jannika B will host in the Green Room.

Spokesperson #01:-
Benjamin Peltonen (born 15 April 1997) is a Finnish singer, who originally became famous through the photo-sharing service Instagram, where his profile, opened in 2012, has more than 329,000 followers. In May 2014 Peltonen signed a record deal with the record company Warner Music Finland.

Spokesperson #02:-
Saara Sofia Aalto (born 2 May 1987) is a Finnish singer, songwriter, and voice actress. She has competed to represent Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest twice, in 2011 and 2016, placing second both times. She is currently competing in the thirteenth series of the British version of The X Factor, mentored by Sharon Osbourne.

Spokesperson #03:-
Jannika Bergroth (born 28 February 1985) better known as Jannika B is a Finnish singer. She started by taking part in Idols in 2007 and 2008 and in Finnish X Factor in 2009.

After a few appearances in Finland's Swedish-language station Yle Radio Vega, she had her debut Finnish-language single "Kuin kynsi lakattu" in 2009. In February 2012, she had founded her own independent record label Ona with distribution agreements with Sony Music.

## Format

The competition will consist of 02 semi-finals and a final, a format which is being reintroduced into the contest to maximise the chances for all countries qualifying. The 10 countries with the highest scores in each semi-final will qualify to the grand final where they will join the top 6 countries from the previous edition  Australia,  Canada,  Croatia,  Iran,  Jamaica and the host nation  Finland.

Each participating country had their own national jury/HoD. Each member of a respective nation's jury is required to rank every song, except that of their own country, to produce an overall ranking from first to last place. The song which scored the highest overall rank received 12 points, while the tenth-best ranked song received 1 point.

## Participants

The following countries have confirmed their participation into the contest.

**Table key**

     *Participating Countries*
     *Withdrawing Countries*

## Returning Artists

We welcome back some artists who have previous joined us in MSC.

* Albania Bebe Rexha [Prev.  North Macedonia #28]
* Barbados Rihanna [Prev.  Colombia #03]
* Canada Olivier Dion [Prev. #30]
* Czech Republic Aquababes [Prev. #21]
* France Camille Lou [Prev. #24]
* Hungary Viktor Kiraly [Prev. #08]
* Ireland Hozier [Prev. #12]
* Japan Perfume [Prev. #24]
* The Netherlands Eva Simons [Prev. #21]
* Philippines Kidwolf [Prev. #27]
* Romania Inna [Prev. #26, #29]
* South Korea T-Ara [Prev. #06, #27]
* United Kingdom Sean Paul [Prev.  Jamaica #25]

## Semi-final allocation draw

The draw that determined the semi-final allocation was held on 27th October. The participating countries, excluding the automatic finalists  Australia,  Canada,  Croatia,  Iran,  Jamaica and the host nation  Finland. The countries were split into two pots which would either be semi final 1 or semi final 2. Then a random generator was used to allocate countries into the running order. The results were as follows:

It was decided that  Croatia,  Iran and the host nation  Finland would vote in semi final #01 and  Australia,  Canada and  Jamaica would vote in semi final #02. This was to assure to make the results fair and even for all participants in the edition.

## Semi Final 1

**22 Countries** are participating in this Semi Final with  **Croatia**,  **Finland** and  **Iran** voting as 3 of the 6 automatic qualifiers of this edition. The top 10 countries that score the highest number of points will qualify to the grand final.

     Qualified

## Semi Final 2

**22 Countries** are participating in this Semi Final with  **Australia**,  **Canada** and  **Jamaica** voting as 3 of the 6 automatic qualifiers of this edition. The top 10 countries that score the highest number of points will qualify to the grand final.

     Qualified

## Grand Final

26 Countries will create the grand final. 10 from Semi Final 1, 10 from Semi Final 2 and the automatic qualifiers  Australia,  Canada,  Croatia,  Iran,  Jamaica and the host nation  Finland.

The draw on  Australia,  Canada,  Croatia,  Iran,  Jamaica and the host nation  Finland position in the running order were done prior to the Semi Finals.

This was the running order for the Grand Final

### **12points**

Below is a summary of the maximum 12 points each country awarded to another in the final:

## Voting & Spokespeople

This is the order of how the votes were released and the spokesperson from each country

First half of results

01. Bhutan Sonam Choden Retty

02. Sweden Lynda Woodruff

03. Japan Yoko Ono

04. Denmark Sofie Linde Lauridsen

05. United States Ellen DeGeneres

06. British Virgin Islands Richard Branson

07. Canada Cobie Smulders

08. Cyprus Ivi Adamou

09. Malta Gabriela Ann Xuereb

10. Iran Mahan Moin

11. Israel Ofer Nachshon

12. South Africa Hanri van Schalkwyk

13. Germany Olivia Jones

Second half of results

14. South Korea Seohyun

15. Croatia Davor Gerbus

16. Chile Francisca Valenzuela

17. United Kingdom Louisa Johnson

18. ArmeniaNina Vee

19. Kyrgyzstan Vitalij Lux

20. Norway Ingrid Bolsø Berdal

21. Australia Liam Hemsworth

22. Jamaica Omi

23. Iceland Maria Sigrun Hilmarsdottir

24. Finland Saara Maria Forsberg

25. Albania Albert Stanaj

26. Indonesia Burak Tozkoparan

### Voting Grid

This is how the votes were scored in each Semi Final.

     Voter was replaced
     Qualified

Here is how the world voted in the grand final.

     Voter was replaced