AwlaVision Song Contest 2

Final date
 Venue
 Presenter(s)
 Executive producer
 Opening act
 Interval act
 Entries
 Debuting
 System
 Winner

**AwlaVision Song Contest 2**, often referred to as **ASC#2**, was the second edition of AwlaVision Song Contest, held in Stockholm, Sweden. The edition started the 26th December 2015, and ended the 14th January 2016

13 countries participated in this edition, where France decided to no participate due to the country's terror alert, and Norway withdrew from the competition. Germany, Moldova, Poland and Scotland debuted in this edition. Sarsa from Poland won the contest with the song "Naucz mnie" receiving a total of 88 points, 2 points ahead the runner-up, Sweden. Germany and Greece finishing in third place with 82 points. The host country, Sweden achieved a second place with 86 points. The last place was for Spain, that got only 12 points.

## Organisation

After Sweden's victory in AwlaVision Song Contest 1, SVT had to decide where to organise the contest this time. The main projects were from Malmö (*Malmö Arena*) and Stockholm (*Friends Arena* or *Tele2 Arena*), both cities are at the south of the country, so the edition would be opened to Europe from the beginning. Finally, SVT and ABU chose **Stockholm** as the host city of ASC2. The arena elected were Friends arena due to the higher capacity to accommodate spectators.

SVT decided to innovate on the issue of presenters. In last edition, there were a woman and a men, so they chose to **Måns Zelmerlöw**, **Eric Saade** and **Danny Saucedo** (*Only green room*) like presenters of this edition. The fact of being three boys, led to SVT to sexism criticism.

## Location

### **Friends Arena**

**Friends Arena**, the Association football national arena of Sweden, is a retractable roof multi-purpose stadium located next to Lake Råstasjön in Solna, just north of Stockholm City Centre. The main tenants of the stadium are Sweden's national football team and top-tier Stockholm football club AIK. Both relocated from their previous home at the Råsunda Stadium. The venue has a total capacity of 65,000 at concerts and 50,000 seated at football matches, but the stadium can be scaled down to accomplish a more intimate setting to host smaller events with a capacity of approximately 20,000 guests. Friends Arena is the biggest football stadium, and indoor venue, in the Nordic countries.

Initially there were plans to build a new national stadium close to the indoor venue Ericsson Globe in Stockholm, but at 1 April 2006 the Swedish Football Association (SvFF) took the decision to build the new stadium in Solna, where the old Råsunda Stadium is located. It was calculated to cost around 1.9 billion kronor (170 million euro) to complete. The estimated cost before construction had begun was 2.3 billion kronor. It replaced Råsunda Stadium, Sweden's former national arena for football. Råsunda will be torn down and will be the first stadium that hosted a FIFA World Cup in history to be removed. Blocks of 700 flats and office buildings will be erected on the site.

Swedbank acquired the naming rights to the new stadium in a 153 million kronor (about 20.5 million euro) deal that will last until 2023. While the arena was originally to be known as Swedbank Arena under the deal, Swedbank announced on 28 March 2012 that it would donate its naming rights to Friends, a nonprofit organization against school bullying of which Swedbank is a supporter. As such, the stadium was re-named Friends Arena.

### **Stockholm**

**Stockholm** is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Founded no later than c. 1250, possibly as early as 1187, Stockholm has long been one of Sweden's cultural, media, political and economic centres. Its strategic location on 14 islands on the south-central east coast of Sweden at the mouth of Lake Mälaren, by the Stockholm archipelago, has been historically important. Stockholm has been nominated by GaWC as a global city, with a ranking of Alpha.

*Stockholm'*s location appears in Norse sagas as Agnafit, and in Heimskringla in connection with the legendary king Agne. The earliest written mention of the name Stockholm dates from 1252, by which time the mines in Bergslagen made it an important site in the iron trade. The first part of the name (stock) means log in Swedish, although it may also be connected to an old German word (Stock) meaning fortification. The second part of the name (holm) means islet, and is thought to refer to the islet Helgeandsholmen in central Stockholm. The city is said to have been founded by Birger Jarl to protect Sweden from a sea invasion by foreign navies and to stop the pillage of towns such as Sigtuna on Lake Mälaren.
This is the first time in the contest that AwlaVision Song Contest is held in Sweden.

## Participants

13 countries participated in the edition.

### **Debuting countries**

Bellow a list of all debuting countries:

* Germany
* Moldova
* Poland
* Scotland

### **Withdrawing countries**

Bellow a list of all withdrawing countries:

* France
* Norway

## See also

* AwlaVision Song Contest
* AwlaVision Song Contest 1