The Netherlands at Instaglobal Song Contest 18

The Netherlands participated in the 18th Instaglobal Song Contest. It was also the 18th time the country did so. As the seven editions before, the Dutch entry was selected by a national final called *Nederlands Songfestival*. The winners of this edition were Eva Simons and Will.I.Am with the song 'This Is Love'. At Instaglobal, they qualified for the final and reached a 23rd place out of 28 contestants.

Right after Instaglobal 17, AVROTROS announced to continue with *Nederlands Songfestival* to select the Dutch entry for IGC. It was also preliminary announced that the selection of last edition and the edition before that would be used again, with eight contestants in one big final. This statement was later withdrawn after the IGU announced that Instaglobal 18 would be a retro edition, allowing entries from pre-2014 to enter the contest, because this rule would only last for one edition. AVROTROS stated 'to open the selection for more than eight artists, although it's not known yet for how much'.

## Nederlands Songfestival VIII

Eventually, *Nederlands Songfestival VIII* would be the biggest edition of *Nederlands Songfestival*so far with fifteen participants in total. This beated the previous record of Nederlands Songfestival III, which had thirteen participants. It was also the first time since Instaglobal 15 that the Netherlands would use more than one show for its national selection.

### Format

The fifteen entries were divided into three prerounds with five entries per preround. The top two most voted songs in each preround would automatically qualify for the final, having a total of six automatical qualifiers.

Since AVROTROS still wanted to hold a final with eight participants (just like in the two previous editions), the broadcaster decided to hand out two wildcards for the two songs that got the most votes over all of all the nine non-qualifiers of the prerounds. In this way, eight contestants would meet in the final to decide who's going to be the Dutch representative of the Netherlands at Instaglobal 18.

### Participants

This edition saw many returning artists that participated in *Nederlands Songfestival*before. Martin Garrix (NSF 1), Eva Simons (NSF 2/4) and Sharon Doorson (NSF 1/3/4) all won it before, while Anouk (NSF 1/2) represented the country already in Second Chance. Afrojack (NSF 1), Armin van Buuren (NSF 1), Bakermat (NSF 2), De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig (NSF 3), Within Temptation (NSF 3), Caro Emerald (NSF 6), Shermanology (NSF 6) and Racoon (NSF 7) were fully returning to the selection. Jacqueline Govaert (NSF 7) also returned, but then as lead singer of the band Krezip. The only debuting artists were Sandra van Nieuwland, Maaike Ouboter and Wildstylez ft. Niels Geusebroek.

Most of the returning artists stated that the reason to return was that they could show their earlier, mostly more known music for once. It was also not surprising that the returning artists did much better for that reason than the newcomers: Maaike Ouboter and Wildstylez ft. Niels Geusebroek missed out on the final, and despite being a favourite, Sandra van Nieuwland couldn't get more than a 4th place in the final. 'It was clear that the Dutch and international audiences were voting for a nostalgic hit than something newer to them', said Van Nieuwland after the show in an interview.

### Voting

In each preround, ten Instaglobal delegations (Norway, Belgium, Moldova, Finland, Turkey, Spain, Canada, United Kingdom, Israel and Ukraine) could divide 100 points among the five contestants, giving points to at least two songs. Eventually, with two qualifiers per preround and two wildcards, eight contestants would qualify for the final.

In the final, voting went just as the two previous editions of *Nederlands Songfestival*: 12 delegations from a 'Province Jury' and 28 delegations from an 'Instaglobal Jury' could split 0, 1, 2, 4, 6, 8,10 and 12 points, with 12 for their favourite and 0 for their least favourite song. The only difference was that this year, instead of getting spokespersons, the Province Jury votes were also announced as one big top 8, when after these results the votes from the Instaglobal Jury were added up by the scores of the Province Jury. After this was done, the winner and the runner-up (for Second Chance) were known.

### Results

#### Preround 1

Sandra van Nieuwland won the first preround, with Eva Simons and Will.I.Am coming second. Anouk got the wildcard, since De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig and Bakermat only received 5 points altogether, making it easy for Anouk to get more votes in total.

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#### Preround 2

Within Temptation won this preround with a giant leap, followed by Martin Garrix. Afrojack and Shermanology got the second wildcard.

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#### Preround 3

Sharon Doorson was the obvious winner, with Armin van Buuren coming second. Maaike Ouboter came third, but didn't have enough points for a wildcard.

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#### Final

The final had some expected as unexpected results. Within Temptation and Sandra van Nieuwland couldn't come into top three, even though they won their own preround. Sharon Doorson became eventually second and was invited to participate in Second Chance. It was Eva Simons and Will.I.Am winning unexpectedly, even though the Province Jury had a slight preference for Sharon Doorson.

## At Instaglobal

Eva represented the Netherlands for the fourth time at Instaglobal (she already did so in the editions 4, 7 and 12). At her fourth attempt in Tiraspol, she and  Will.I.Am had to qualify first via the third semi-final. There, the duo had to perform 13th, after Croatia and before Spain. At the end, Eva and Will qualified for the final, coming 4th with 83 points in their semi. Even though they saw big chances of coming high in the final, the duo stranded with only 70 points on a 23rd place. They did get the maximum 12 points twice, from Spain and Venezuela. Eva Simons stated after the final to be disappointed in her result, seeing her country not doing so well the past five editions. She hoped she could do better, but said that 'even I can't change the losing streak of the Netherlands, we aren't even coming in top 20 anymore'. With this, Simons referred to her 4th place in edition 7 and her song 'Celebrate The Rain'.

### At Second Chance

Sharon Doorson was invited to represent the Netherlands at Instaglobal Second Chance 8, after being the runner-up in *Nederlands Songfestival VIII*. She accepted, and travelled to Antalya, Turkey. She first had to perform in the semi-final, since the Netherlands was a returning country after being unable to participate in the previous edition. Doorson qualified and came eventually 8th in the final, getting the second top-10 placement for the country at Second Chance. This made the country able to be automatically qualified for the SCC final in the 9th edition.