Mysterious Song Contest 40

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

**Mysterious Song Contest** welcomes the world to  France for the 40th Edition.

The Mysterious Song Contest #40 will be the 40th edition of the annual Mysterious Song Contest Wikia. It will take place in the **AccorHotels Arena**, located in **Paris**,  France, following the country's victory at the 40th edition with Cassandre performing "La Revolution". This will be the 1st 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 **06th July 2018** and **12th July 2018**. The grand final official date being the **23rd July 2018**. All three live shows were hosted by **Amir Haddad**, **Alma** and **Kendji Girac**.

As of **26th June 2018** **41** countries participated in the contest. **0** countries have made their debut. **10** countries returned to the contest after absences, while **14** countries withdrew citing financial issues and heads of delegation troubles as factors for their withdrawal.

This will be the fifth edition where the voting will be displayed by separating the votes into qualifiers and non qualifying countries. The votes will be rewarded with the first set revealed from the jury results, revealing their points by their chosen spokespersons. The second set will be a total score from the televote from each nation. The final result would be the total of both sets of votes.

## Location

**France 2**  France, announced on **12th June 2018** that with the contest being held in  France that any city, town or arena that would like to host the contest would had four 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 Fiji.

     **Host City**

 Lyon
 Marseille
 Paris
 Toulouse

The **AccorHotels Arena** in **Paris**, which has a capacity of approximately **20,300** attendees, was announced as the host venue on **24th June 2017**. This will be the Arena's 1st time hosting the contest.

## Presenters

On **24th June 2018**, **France 2** announced that **Amir Haddad**, **Alma** and **Kendji Girac** will be the host of the 40th contest.

**Spokesperson #01**:- Amir Haddad
Laurent Amir Khlifa Khedider Haddad‎, born 20 June 1984 in Paris, France, better known as Amir Haddad or simply as Amir, is a French-Israeli singer and songwriter. He took part in 2006 in the Israeli music competition Kokhav Nolad, released his album Vayehi in 2011 and was a finalist in French competition The Voice: la plus belle voix as part of Team Jenifer finishing third in the competition. He represented France in the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 with the song "J'ai cherché", which finished in 6th place.

**Spokesperson #02**:- Alma
Alexandra Maquet, born 27 September 1988, known professionally as Alma, is a French singer and songwriter. She represented France in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 with the song "Requiem", finishing twelfth.

**Spokesperson #03**:- Kendji Girac
Kendji Girac, born July 3, 1996 is a French singer. He is the winner of Season 3 of the music competition The Voice: la plus belle voix as part of Team Mika. He has released two studio albums, Kendji and Ensemble as well as a string of hit singles.

## 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  Afghanistan,  Brazil,  Kosovo,  United Kingdom,  Vietnam and the host nation  France.

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.

### Participant Map

**Table key**

     *The Big '6' Countries*
     *Participating Countries*
     *Countries That Failed To Qualify*
     *Withdrawing Countries*
     *Countries That Have Participated Before*

## Returning Artists

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

* Australia Bobby Andonov [Prev. #30 for  North Macedonia]
* Bulgaria Tita [Prev. JMSC #08]
* Estonia Karl-Erik Tauker [Prev. #30]
* France Nadav Guedj [Prev. JMSC #03 for  Israel]
* Hungary Tibor Kocsis [Prev. #13]
* Iceland Glowie [Prev. #26]
* Italy Emma Marrone [Prev. #32]
* Norway Julie Bergan [Prev. #27]
* Portugal April Ivy [Prev. JMSC #09]
* Ukraine Via Gra [Prev. #32]
* US Virgin Islands Ariana Grande [Prev. #11 for  Canada, #22, #31 for  United States]

## Semi-final allocation draw

The draw that determined the semi-final allocation was held on 27th October. The participating countries, excluding the automatic finalists  Afghanistan,  Brazil,  Kosovo,  United Kingdom,  Vietnam and the host nation  France. 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  Brazil,  France and  Kosovo would vote in semi final #01 and  Afghanistan,  United Kingdom and  Vietnam 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

**18 Countries** are participating in this Semi Final with  **Brazil**,  **France** and  **Kosovo** 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

**18 Countries** are participating in this Semi Final with  **Afghanistan**,  **United Kingdom** and  **Vietnam** 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  Afghanistan,  Brazil,  Kosovo,  United Kingdom,  Vietnam and the host nation  France.

The draw on  Afghanistan,  Brazil,  Kosovo,  United Kingdom,  Vietnam and the host nation  France 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.

01.  Mali Maimuna
02.  Kazakhstan Dinara Sultan
03.  South Korea Megan Lee
04.  Vietnam Dong Nhi
05.  North MacedoniaDan Talevski
06.  The Netherlands Waylon
07.  Indonesia Sheryl Sheinafia
08.  Japan Jin Akanishi
09.  Ukraine Mika Newton
10.  San Marino Michele Perniola
11.  Norway Sigrid
12.  Sweden Amanda Winberg
13.  Slovenia Saša Lendero
14.  France Élodie Gossuin

15.  Switzerland Nickless
16.  Brazil Cristiano Araujo
17.  Bulgaria Zhana Bergendorff
18.  Poland Ewa Farna
19.  Hungary Viktor Kiraly
20.  Denmark Anja Nissen
21.  Mexico Anahi
22.  Faroe Islands Guðrið Hansdóttir
23.  Russia Sergey Lazarev
24.  Romania Lucia Maria
25.  Germany Christin Stark
26.  Finland Benjamin Peltonen
27.  Ireland KT Tunstall
28.  United Kingdom Amanda Holden

29.  Afghanistan Aryana Sayeed
30.  New Zealand Brooke Duff
31.  Australia Taylor Henderson
32.  United States Lindsey Stirling
33.  Serbia Danica Krstic
34.  US Virgin Islands Iyaz
35.  Italy Francesca Michielin
36.  Panama Aloe Blacc
37.  Estonia Kerli
38.  Iceland Unnur Eggerts
39.  Belgium Selah Sue
40.  Spain Alvaro Soler
41.  Portugal Filipa Azevedo
42.  Kosovo Mimoza

### Voting Grid

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

Here is how the world voted in the grand final.