Suomalainen Musiikin Kilpailu 9

**Suomalainen Musiikin Kilpailu 9**was the 9th edition of the Finnish national final for Instaglobal Song Contest that selected the song and artist for Finland in the Instaglobal Song Contest 19. The winner will represent Finland in the Instaglobal Song Contest 19 while the runner up will represent Finland in the Instaglobal Second Chance 9.

## **Info**

The national final took place at the Gatorade Center in Turku and is also set to host the next edition after bidding to host SMK 8 & 9. The national final consisted of a final of 6 songs all sang by Finnish singers. The voting was made up of 15 international juries and 15 voting counties set up in Finland and would combine the public votes through the voting counties to project the televote.

### **Venue / Host City**

**Turku** is a city on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River, in the region of Southwest Finland. Turku, as a town, was settled during the 13th century and founded most likely at the end of the 13th century, making it the oldest city in Finland. After Finland became part of the Russian Empire (1809) and the capital of the Grand Duchy of Finland was moved to Helsinki (1812), Turku continued to be the most populous city in Finland until the end of the 1840s, and it remains a regional capital and an important business and cultural center.

**Gatorade Center** (formerly HK Areena, Elysée Arena, Typhoon and Turkuhalli) is an arena in Turku, Finland. It is primarily used for ice hockey and is the home arena of TPS but it is also used to host concerts and other events. Gatorade Center opened in 1990 and holds 11,820 people. A record 12,041 attendance has been registered in 1991.

## **Format**

Suomalainen Musiikin Kilpailu 9 was the 9th edition of the Finnish national selection which was organised the the Finnish Broadcaster YLE and the Finnish-Swedish broadcaster YLE FEM. This is the first edition to feautre a Second Chance Round. The two semi finals and final were hosted by Instaglobal veteran Krista Siegfrids in Turku at the Gatorade Centre. 12 songs and 13 artists will compete in the contest with the 1st and 2nd place qualifying from the semi final directly to the final and the 3rd and 4th qualifying to the Second Chance round and the 4 songs will compete for the two spaces in the final so the 1st and 2nd place would qualify to the final. The final consisted of 6 songs with the four songs qualifying from the semi finals and the two songs qualifying from Second Chance. The winner of the final is decided by 50/50 Jury and Televote and the winner will represent Finland in Instaglobal Song Contest 19.

 Semi Final 1

### **Judges**

Three judges were presented on the 5th of March 2018 and they will give their opinions on the competing artist's visual performances and vocal performances. They are all 3 former SMK or IGC participants and are:

* Jenni Vartiainen
* Eini

* Vesala

### **Competing Artists and Songs**

The 12 competing artists were revealed on the 14th of February 2018 and features Saara Aalto a Instaglobal veteran who represented Finland in Edition 10 with No Fear and came 9th, A returning artist to SMK is the singer ALMA who has participated with Felix Jaehn.

## Semi Finals & Final

#### **Semi Final 1**

Semi Final 1 took place on the same day as Semi Final 2 with Semi Final 1 taking place first and 6 more artists will compete for the two spaces in the final and two places in Second Chance round. A total of 604,539 people viewed the first semi final with 305,986 votes.

#### **Semi Final 2**

Semi Final 2 took place on the same day of Semi Final 1 and 6 more artists will compete for the two spaces in the final and two places in Second Chance round. A total of 560,750 people watched the show with 256,515 SMS votes being recorded by YLE.

#### **Second Chance Round**

The 3rd and 4th place of each semi will go to the Second Chance round and the top 2 will qualify to the final. Due to ongoing budget cuts, Second Chance featured Semi Final 1 3rd & 4th place, Ritarit and Lauri and Semi Final 2 3rd & 4th place ALMA and Venior. YLE registered 149,753 votes in the Second Chance Round. 400,724 people viewed the Second Chance Round

#### **Final**

The final took place on March 17th at the Gatorade Center and 11,254,672 votes were counted through the app and SMS in the grand final. The winner was Ilta with "Koukkan" and won with 516 votes. An SMK app was introduced in the final with a record amount of viewers coming to 2,572,839 people watching the final with 982,593 people who voted using the app and SMS.

#### **Incidents**

1. Many people complained about Haloo Helsinki and their song Rakas as it was less popular than their most popular song Hulluuden Highway and many others. So Haloo Helsinki decided to change their song to Hulluuden Highway to avoid more controversy.
2. Reports from the media had stated that Kati RAN has no relations to Finland except she is singing in Finnish. She was interviewed by the YLE IGC team and she was given options including representing the Netherlands in a future edition or leave SMK voluntarily. She chose to leave SMK and the team asked the Second Chance Round and the other semi finalists to return to the final and only one artist, Lucas accepted so he will take Kati RAN's place in the final. Kati RAN was allowed to perform but people could not vote for her.
3. Lucas was the only non qualifier who accepted the place in the final.

## **Voting and Results Of The Final**

All delegations in Instaglobal were able to vote in the national final with the voting system of 12-10-9-8-7-6 points between their favourite songs. The votes were presented in 6 pots with all 30 voters been put into a pot of 5 voters.The countries/voters were divided into 5/6/7 groups depending on how many voters SMK receives. The groups will be adjusted on regions of the world.

#### **Voting Pots**

* Canada
* Latvia
* Denmark
* Israel
* Lebanon
* Ireland
* India
* Spain
* Norway
* San Marino
* Armenia
* Turkey
* Italy
* Bulgaria
 Group D
 * Ukraine
* Austria
* United Kingdom
* Kazakhstan
* Finland
* Lithuania
* South Korea
* Hungary
* Germany
* Poland
* Greece

#### **12's**

 6
 5
 4
 4
 1

#### **Ratings**

 Semi Final 1
 Semi Final 2
 Second Chance
 Final