AwlaVision Song Contest 1

Final date
 Venue
 Presenter(s)
 Broadcaster
 Executive producer
 Opening act
 Interval act
 Entries
 Debuting
 System
 Winner

**AwlaVision Song Contest 1**, often referred to as **ASC#1**, was the first edition of AwlaVision Song Contest, held in Helsinki, Finland. The edition started the 6 December 2015, although it was thought that it would begin in January 2016

11 countries participated in this edition, at the beginning, the organisation thought in change the voting system, but finally it stayed the same. Molly Pettersson Hammar from Sweden won the contest with the song "Something right" receiving a total of 84 points, 15 points ahead the runner-up, Andorra. England finishing in third place with 61 points. The host country, Finland achieved a 9th place with 44 points. The last place was for Greece, that got only 18 points. There weren't any tie.

## Organisation

Once invented the festival, the organisation had to decide where would the festival be in its first edition. Baku (Azerbaijan) and Helsinki (Finland) presented their applications, but Baku finally retired its own. ABU confirmed the 1st December 2015 that Helsinki will host ASC#1 in **Hartwall Areena**. At that meeting, ABU also said the theme of this edition, ''***Start with yourself***'', relating it with being the first edition of the contest and encouraging countries to participate in the contest.

Hartwall Areena is a big multifuntional arena at the north of Helsinki, Finland. YLE decided to host ASC#1 there because it's the biggest hall of the country. It can accommodate to 17.000 spectator. Inside of it, they acted artists such us *Lady Gaga, Rihanna, AC/DC, Nightwish, Within Templation, Christina Aguilera, Shakira* and *Spice Girls* between a lot of them.

YLE decided to have two presenters, a man and a woman. They believed that they could be young and famous singers, so they thought in Tarja Tutunen, Robin Packalen, Benjamin Peltonen and more, but finally YLE decided to **Hanna Pakarinen** and **Topi Latukka** to present ASC#1.

Both made acts in the edition. Topi Latukka, as singer of the group **Softengine**, made the opening act of the edition. They sing their song "*Our new age*". On the other side, Hanna Pakarinen sang alone her song "*Leave me alone*" after the "*Hard rock hallelujah*" of **Lordi**, that also performed.

## Location

### **Hartwall Areena**

**Hartwall Areena** (Often called Helsinki Areena, Helsingin Areena or Helsingforsarenan ('The Helsinki Arena') by the Finnish press) is a large multifunctional indoor arena located in Helsinki, Finland. The arena gets its name from its largest sponsor, the beverage company Hartwall, also based in Helsinki.

The idea of building the arena came from Harry "Hjallis" Harkimo in 1994. It was built to be ready for the Ice Hockey World Championships in 1997 and was delivered by the constructor on April 11, 1997. The building is elliptical, 153 metres long and 123 metres wide. 37 meters under ground there is a practice arena which is used by many hockey teams.

Total capacity in ice hockey games is 13,506 (all seats). The arena is convertible for various events. For sport events, the capacity is about 10,000, about 14,000 for basketball, for concerts about 13,000, and as an amphitheatre, 3,000-5,000. It is connected to a multi-storey carpark, which has a total capacity of 1,421 vehicles.

Hartwall Arena has been used on several occasions for NHL premiere games. The Carolina Hurricanes and the Minnesota Wild opened the 2010–11 NHL season season here between October 7–8, 2010, as part of the 2010 Compuware NHL Premiere Games. The venue once again played host to one NHL premiere game for the 2011–12 NHL season as the Anaheim Ducks faced the Buffalo Sabres on October 7, 2011. Before that match, Anaheim Ducks played a friendly match against Jokerit in the same arena on October 4, which ended 4-3 in the Ducks' favour on overtime.

During May 4–20 Hartwall Arena served as the main venue of the 2012 IIHF World Championship. It hosted all Group A games and quarterfinals, all semifinals and all medal games. Group B games and quarterfinals were hosted in Ericsson Globe, Stockholm. It also co-hosted the 2013 IIHF World Championship with Ericsson Globe, but in 2013 all games after quarterfinals were played in Stockholm.

### **Helsinki**

**Helsinki** (/ˈhɛlsɪŋki/; Finnish pronunciation: [ˈhe̞l.siŋ.k̟i] Swedish: Helsingfors, pronounced [hɛlsɪŋˈfɔʂ] ) is the capital and largest city of Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. Helsinki has a population of 621,863, an urban population of 1.2 million (31 December 2013), and a metropolitan population of 1.4 million, making it the most populous municipality and urban area in Finland. Helsinki is located some 80 kilometres (50 mi) north of Tallinn, Estonia, 400 kilometres (250 mi) north east of Stockholm, Sweden, and 300 kilometres (190 mi) west of Saint Petersburg, Russia. Helsinki has close historical connections with these three cities.

The Helsinki metropolitan area includes urban core of Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Kauniainen and surrounding commuter towns. It is the world's northernmost metro area of over one million people, and the city is the northernmost capital of an EU member state. The Helsinki metropolitan area is the fourth largest Nordic metropolitan area after the metropolitan areas of Copenhagen, Stockholm and Oslo and Helsinki city is the third biggest Nordic city after Stockholm and Oslo.

Helsinki is Finland's major political, educational, financial, cultural and research centre as well as one of northern Europe's major cities. Approximately 70% of foreign companies operating in Finland have settled in the Helsinki region. The nearby municipality of Vantaa is the location of Helsinki Airport, with frequent service to various destinations in Europe and Asia.

In 2009, Helsinki was chosen to be the World Design Capital for 2012 by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design, narrowly beating Eindhoven for the title.

In the Economist Intelligence Unit's August 2012 Liveability survey, assessing the best and worst cities to live in, Helsinki placed eighth best overall. In 2011, the Monocle Magazine in turn ranked Helsinki the most liveable city in the world in its Liveable Cities Index 2011.

This is the first time in the history of the AwlaVision Song Contest when the competition is held in Finland.

## Participants

11 countries participated in the edition. It was the first edition so all countries were debuting.

### **Debuting countries**

Bellow a list of all debuting countries:

* Andorra
* England
* Finland
* France
* Greece
* Italy
* Norway
* Portugal
* Romania
* Spain
* Sweden