Mysterious Song Contest 42

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

**Mysterious Song Contest** welcomes the world to  Philippines for the 42nd Edition.

The **Mysterious Song Contest #42** will be the 42nd edition of the annual Mysterious Song Contest Wikia. It will take place in the **Philippine Arena**, located in **Bulacan**,  Philippines, following the country's victory at the 41st edition with Built By Titan & Starxs performing **"Broken Love"**. This will be the **first** time the country hosts the contest.

The contest is scheduled to consist of 2 semi finals and finally the grand final, with official dates for the semi finals being **22nd October 2018**. The grand final official date being the **29th October 2018**. All three live shows were hosted by **Maine Mendoza**.

As of **8th October 2018** **47** confirmed countries participated in the contest. **3** countries have made their debut, The countries being  Cook Islands,  Ivory Coast and  Sri Lanka. **14** countries returned to the contest after absences, while **18** countries withdrew.

## Location

It will take place in the **Philippine Arena**, located in **Bulacan**,  Philippines, following the country's victory at the 41st edition with Built By Titan & Starxs performing "Broken Love".

### **Venue**

The **Philippine Arena** in **Bulacan**, which has a capacity of approximately **55,000** attendees, was announced as the host venue on **10th October 2018**. This will be the Arena's first time hosting the contest.

### **Bidding phase and host city selection**

Following **Philippines's** triumph, the Mysterious Broadcasting Union (MBU)'s Executive Supervisor for the Mysterious Song Contest, issued the hosting invitation to **ABS-CBN** during the winner's press conference.

**ABS-CBN**  Philippines, announced on **2nd October** that with the contest being held in **Philippines** 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 1,000 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 country.

     **Host City**

 Naga
 Pasay
 Quezon City
 San Juan
The Centre plays host to the basketball games of the Philippine Basketball League, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the University Athletic Association of the Philippines since 2009, the Filoil Flying V Preseason Cup, Philippine Collegiate Champions League, Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League, as well as the volleyball games of the Premier Volleyball League.

## Format

### **Visual Design**

The theme for the contest, **Capture Your Dreams**, was unveiled on 10th October 2018 in a press conference. Its visual design features a dreamcatcher that allude to the ideas that everyone should capture their most prized dream and the catcher is to hold onto them until the right time where the dream has been reached. The contest's Executive Supervisor remarked that the theme and logos "resonate with MSC's core values, including diversity, very well. The dreamcatcher connects all of us and its variety can provide good inspiration for each of the participating broadcasters that we look forward to seeing in Bulacan this month."

### **Presenters**

On **4th October**, **ABS-CBN** announced that the contest would be hosted by **Maine Mendoza**.

**Spokesperson**:- Maine Mendoza
Nicomaine Dei Capili Mendoza (born March 3, 1995) is a Filipino actress, comedienne, host, television and Internet personality, writer, product endorser, and singer-songwriter. She is best known for her viral Dubsmash videos and her role as Yaya Dub in the noontime variety show Eat Bulaga!'s "Kalyeserye" segment that was previously aired on GMA Network and worldwide via GMA Pinoy TV.

Mendoza wrote and interpreted "Imagine You and Me," the theme song for the 2016 movie of the same name. The music for the song is done by Vic Sotto with arrangements by Jimmy Antiporda. A duet version of the song was also released for the film.

In June 2018, Mendoza signed a record deal with Universal Records. Neocolours lead vocalist Ito Rapadas is the over-all producer of Mendoza's first album.

### **Voting**

The competition will consist of **02** semi-finals and a final. 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  **North Macedonia,  Germany,  Iceland,  San Marino,  Spain and the host nation  Philippines**.

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.

### **Semi-final allocation draw**

The draw to determine the allocation of the participating countries into their respective semi-finals took place on **15th October 2018**. The **41** semi-finalists had been allocated into **5** pots, based on the geographical locations of the nations. Drawing from different pots helps to increase suspense in the semi-finals. The draw also determined which semi-final would be broadcast and voted by each of the six automatic finalist countries ( **North Macedonia,  Germany,  Iceland,  San Marino,  Spain and the host nation  Philippines**).

* Bosnia and Herzegovina
* Croatia
* Hungary
* Poland
* Romania
* Russia
* Turkey
* Ukraine
* Indonesia
* Japan
* Kyrgyzstan
* Mongolia
* South Korea
* Sri Lanka
* Taiwan
* Canada
* Cook Islands
* Ivory Coast
* Mexico
* Morocco
* New Zealand
* United States
* Estonia
* Finland
* France
* Latvia
* Norway
* Sweden
* United Kingdom
* Austria
* Belgium
* Italy
* The Netherlands
* Portugal
* Slovenia
* Switzerland

## Participating Countries

**8th October 2018** **47** confirmed countries participated in the contest. **3** countries have made their debut, The countries being  Cook Islands,  Ivory Coast and  Sri Lanka. **14** countries returned to the contest after absences, while **18** countries withdrew.

### **Returning Artists**

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

* Albania Arilena Ara
* Australia Amy Shark
* Belgium Hooverphonic
* Croatia Severina
* Estonia Kerli
* Germany Christin Stark
* Hungary Bogi
* Japan Perfume
* Latvia Kathrine Lukins
* Mexico Thalia
* The Netherlands Within Temptation
* Norway Susanne Sundfør
* South Korea Momoland
* Spain Blas Cantó

## Finals

### **Semi Final 1**

**21 Countries** are participating in this Semi Final with  **North Macedonia**,  **Philippines** and  **San Marino** 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**

**20 Countries** are participating in this Semi Final with  **Germany**,  **Iceland** and  **Spain** 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  North Macedonia,  Germany,  Iceland,  San Marino,  Spain and the host nation  Philippines.

The draw on  North Macedonia,  Germany,  Iceland,  San Marino,  Spain and the host nation  Philippines position in the running order were done prior to the Semi Finals.

## Scoring

### **12points**

Below is a summary of the maximum 12 points each country awarded to another in the Grand final:

### **Scoreboards**

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

     Voter was replaced (approved)
     Voter was replaced (not approved)
     Qualified

Here is how the world voted in the grand final.

     Voter was replaced (approved)
     Voter was replaced (not approved)

## Spokespeople

This is the order of how the votes were released and the spokesperson from each country

01.  United States Ryan Seacrest
02.  Spain Jesús Vázquez
03.  Canada Marci Ien
04.  Sri Lanka Latha Walpola
05.  Indonesia Indy Barends
06.  Ukraine Volodymyr Ostapchuk
07.  Germany Sibel Kekilli
08.  Iceland Edda Sif Pálsdóttir
09.  Sweden Pär Lernström
10.  Poland Dorota Wellman
11.  Albania Alketa Vejsiu
12.  North Macedonia Dragana Cuprina
13.  Philippines Ogie Alcasid

14.  Kyrgyzstan Omar Zhanyshov
15.  Croatia Toni Jeričević
16.  Russia Kseniya Borodina
17.  Turkey Sinem Öztürk
18.  Japan Tsutomu Sekine
19.  San Marino Simona Ventura
20.  The Netherlands Jan Versteegh
21.  South Korea Lee Hyori
22.  Latvia Paula Muzikante
23.  France Benjamin Castaldi
24.  Taiwan Chris Wang
25.  United Kingdom Tess Daly
26.  Australia David Campbell

## National Selections

Here is a list of all the national selections held this edition.