Zone Song Contest 1

Final
 Venue
 Entries
 Debuting

**Participation map**
* Template:Infobox edition/1
     Participating countries     Did not qualify from the semi final or the PSR
 System
 Winner

**Zone Song Contest 1**, often referred as **ZSC 1**, is the debut edition of the Zone Song Contest. Although the festival was scheduled to take place in December of 2018. It was finally started on September of 2019 with several members of the Zone Broadcasting Union. The host country was United Kingdom, they offered The Netherlands to organize the first edition of the festival but they only provided the budget and the direction for the ZBU. But together, the public chains AVROTROS and BBC launched the preparations for the debut edition of the contest on September 17, 2019. Making the union of countries of the ZBU a reality. For this reason  Netherlands was part of the Big 6.

A total of **47** countries from the ZBU decided to join into the first edition of the festival, it has been the largest number of countries we have seen at the Zone Song Contest.

The official slogan of this edition was "Flying", it was inspired by the thoughts of each one of the 47 participating countries flying towards a place *(in this case London)* to represent their own country with all their pride in one of the largest and biggest music competitions in Europe called Zone Song Contest.

As soon as London was chosen as the host city for the festival, Ian Wright, Stacey Solomon and Davina McCall were announced by the BBC as presenters for the first edition, Ian and Stacey hosting both Semi-Finals and the Grand Final and Davina presenting the *Zone Red Carpet Show* and other interviews with the singers at the backstage.

## Location

**United Kingdom** is a sovereign country in north-western Europe, off the north-­western coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-­eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands within the British Isles. The United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south and the Celtic Sea to the south-west, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world. The Irish Sea separates United Kingdom and Ireland. The total area of the United Kingdom is 242,500 square kilometres (93,628 sq mi), with an estimated population in 2020 of 68 million.

**London** is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a 50-mile (80 km) estuary down to the North Sea, it has been a major settlement for two millennia. The City of London, its ancient core and financial centre, was founded by the Romans as Londinium and retains boundaries close to its medieval ones.
London, as one of the world's global cities, exerts strong influence on its arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, health care, media, tourism and communications. Its GDP makes it the biggest urban economy in Europe and one of the major financial centres in the world.

### Bidding phase

As of September 18, the English HoD Tiffany Nathan officially presented the rules that Australian cities should meet in order to hold the contest.
The basic requirements to select a host city were set out in a document presented by the ZBU to BBC:

* A suitable venue that can accommodate around at least 10,000 spectators.
* An international press centre for 1,500 journalists with adequate facilities for all the delegates.
* A good distribution of hotel rooms, at different price categories, able to accommodate at least 2,000 delegates, accredited journalists and spectators.
* An efficient transport infrastructure, including a nearby international airport with readily available connections with the city, venue, and hotels.

On 22 September five cities were announced with possibilities to host the contest, they were:

**Key**
  †  Host venue   ‡  Shortlisted venues

 London | O2 Arena †

## Results

### Semi-Final 1

France, Spain and United Kingdom will also vote in this semi-final.

### Semi-Final 2

Germany, Italy and Netherlands will also vote in this semi-final.

## External Links

* Google Drive
* Twitter