OVSC17

## OrbisVision Song Contest #17

 Rina Sawayama performing a selection of songs from her two albums, "SAWAYAMA" and "Hold The Girl".
 **Grand Final:**
 Scandal performing a
 selection of their hits.

## Participants

### Debuting

 Burundi
  Malawi
  Zambia

### Returning

 Albania
  Andorra
  Antigua and Barbuda
  Armenia
  Belarus
  Finland
  Iceland
  Ireland
  Liechtenstein
  Luxembourg
  Moldova
  Portugal
  Slovenia

### Withdrawing

 Austria
  Brazil
  Cameroon
  Republic of the Congo
  Denmark
  Dominican Republic
  Gibraltar
  Guernsey
  Iran
  Ivory Coast
  Kazakhstan
  Kenya
  Lithuania
  Netherlands
  Sudan
  Switzerland

## Voting

### System

Each country awards a set of 1 - 7 points, followed by 8, 10 and 12 points for their top 3 favourite songs

### Winner

 Mongolia
 "Yag Esregeer ni" by Becca

After their victory in Sochi, the 17th OrbisVision Song Contest returned to Japan in the city of Osaka!

This was the second time Japan has hosted and the fifth time it's been to Asia. Japan also shared the same record as the UK for hosting more than once.

The contest consisted of 3 shows, 2 semi-finals and a Grand Final.

44 countries have confirmed their participation.

Mongolia won for the first time with the song "Yag Esregeer ni" by Becca, beating the runner-up Belarus by a margin of just 2 points. Mongolia became the second Asian country in a row to win and was also the sixth time an Asian country has won.

## Location

### Host city

Osaka (大阪, *Ōsaka)* is the third largest city in Japan, with a population of over 2.5 million people in its greater metropolitan area. It is the central metropolis of the Kansai region and the largest of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto trio.

"Osaka" can mean either the larger Osaka prefecture, or central Osaka city.

The city is administratively divided into 24 wards

If Tokyo is Japan's capital, one might call Osaka its anti-capital. Whatever you call it, though, there are many opportunities for you to discover its true character.

Veiled much with a commercial-centric city touch, you may as well start from picking up the lively intonation of Osaka dialect, heard from the people as you ride on the escalators standing on the right, instead of the left in Tokyo; then discovering the contrast of popular food to eastern Japan, as you look for places to lunch.

The deeper you get inside, and at the end of your stay, it is not completely impossible that you may have compiled your own original list of reasons covering from history, culture, sports, to business.

Osaka dates back to the Asuka and Nara periods. Under the name Naniwa, it was briefly the capital of Japan 645-655, 661-667 and finally 744-745 AD.

Even after the capital was moved elsewhere, Osaka continued to play an important role as a hub for land, sea and river-canal transportation.

During the Tokugawa era, while Edo (now Tokyo) served as the austere seat of military power and Kyoto was the home of the Imperial court and its courtiers, Osaka served as "the Nation's Kitchen", the collection and distribution point for rice, the most important measure of wealth.

Hence it was also the city where merchants made and lost fortunes and cheerfully ignored repeated warnings from the shogunate to reduce their conspicuous consumption.

During the Meiji era, Osaka's fearless entrepreneurs took the lead in industrial development, making it the equivalent of Manchester in the UK.

A thorough drubbing in World War 2 left little evidence of this glorious past, even the famous Osaka Castle is a ferro concrete reconstruction, but to this day, while unappealing and gruff on the surface, Osaka remains Japan's best place to eat, drink and party, and in legend (if not in practice) Osakans still greet each other with *mōkarimakka?*, "are you making money?" in English.

### Venue

The Osaka-jō Hall is a multi-purpose arena located in the Kyōbashi area of Osaka, Japan. The hall opened in 1983 and can seat up to 16,000 people.

Built on a site area of 36,351 square meters, part of its form uses stone walls, modelled after those of the Castle and it won the Osaka Urban Scenery Architects Prize Special Award in 1984.

The hall is located in Osaka-jō Park, near Osaka Castle and is across a river from two other smaller concert halls.

It is used for some sports, such as judo championships and wrestling matches such as those for the New Japan Pro-Wrestling promotion for their annual NJPW Dominion event. In 2020 NJPW used the venue for their New Beginning show.

The venue is also popular for concerts, with many native and international pop and rock music artists.

Each winter, 10,000 people come to the hall to participate in a performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9.

Many international and native acts have performed here, including Britney Spears, Mariah Carey, Bjork, Christina Aguilera, Ed Sheeran, Justin Bieber, Kylie Minogue, Momoiro Clover Z, Hikaru Utada, LiSA, Sarah Brightman, The Black Eyed Peas, Girls' Generation, Shinee, Twice, Seventeen, Red Velvet, Blackpink, One Ok Rock, Queen, NCT 127, Ayumi Hamasaki, Babymetal, Beyoncé, Oasis, Babymetal, Prince, Duran Duran, Whitney Houston, Rod Stewart, Pink Floyd, Iron Maiden and Scandal.

### Bidding process

After their victory in Sochi, NHK was once again appointed as host broadcaster for OVSC17 and they decided to have a bidding process take place to find the host city of OVSC17. Ten cities were selected to bid for hosting rights of the contest. These cities were Saitama, Nagano, Yokohama, Osaka, Sapporo, Hiroshima, Nagoya, Okinawa, Fukuoka and Tokyo (host of OVSC8).

After a lightning-fast race with all 10 cities fighting it out, it was Osaka that came out on top. They were eventually named as host city for OVSC17 with the 16,000-capacity Osaka-jō Hall as the venue for the contest.

Winning bid is marked in blue, other bids are marked in magenta.

## Participating countries

### Semi-final 1

Morocco, North Korea and Ukraine will vote in this semi-final. Qualifiers are marked in blue.

### Semi-final 2

Hungary, Japan and Mongolia will vote in this semi-final. Qualifiers are marked in blue.