Mysterious Song Contest 38

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  Bulgaria for the 38th Edition.

The Mysterious Song Contest #38 will be the 38th edition of the annual Mysterious Song Contest Wikia. It will take place in the **Palace of Culture and Sport**, located in **Varna**,  Bulgaria, following the country's victory at the 37th edition with Zhana Bergendorff performing "Samuray". 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 **12th February 2018**. The grand final official date being the **26th February 2018**. All three live shows were hosted by **Zhana Bergendorff** and **Vessy Boneva**.

As of **09th Ferbuary 2018** **45** countries participated in the contest. **3** countries have made their debut, The countries being  Dominica,  Nicaragua and  Thailand. **11** countries returned to the contest after absences, while **14** countries withdrew.

This will be the ?? 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

**BNT 1**  Bulgaria, announced on **28th January 2018** that with the contest being held in  Bulgaria 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 4,000 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**

 Plovdiv
 Ruse
 Sofia
 Varna

The **Palace of Culture and Sport** in **Varna**, which has a capacity of approximately **6,000** attendees, was announced as the host venue on **01st February 2017**. This will be the Arena's 1st time hosting the contest.

## Presenters

On **05th February 2017**, **BNT 1** announced that **Vessy Boneva** and **Zhana Bergendorff** will be the host of the 38th contest.

**Spokesperson #01**:- Zhana Bergendorff
Zhana Bergendorff (Bulgarian: Жана Бергендорф, born 20 October 1985) is a Bulgarian singer and songwriter. She is known for winning the second series of Bulgarian X Factor in 2013.

Zhana was born in Sofia, Bulgaria under the name Zhana Vladimirova Brankova, adopting the father and family name of her second father.[2] She started singing at the age of 7. She comes from a family of musicians, her mother and grandparents were musicians. When she was 18 years old she moved to sing in South Korea. She lived there until 2010 and later moved to Denmark with her fiance Stefan. They met in Korea in 2007. In Denmark she entered X Factor Denmark.

**Spokesperson #02**:- Vessy Boneva
Vesela Boneva , better known as Vesi Boneva or Vessy Boneva , is a Bulgarian singer and producer.

Vesi Boneva has in her discography songs like "Ring The Bells", "Believe" and "If You Want to Touch Me". She is the winner of the Best Bulgarian Video of MAD TV Greece, and among the places where she had concerts is the legendary Austrian club "U4", famous for the guests of the names like Prince, Sade and David Guetta.

## 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  Canada,  Italy,  Kosovo,  Slovakia,  Sweden and the host nation  Bulgaria.

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*
     *Withdrawing Countries*
     *Countries That Have Participated Before*

## Returning Artists

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

* Azerbaijan Eldar [Prev. #17 for  Ukraine]
* Bulgaria Mihaela Marinova [Prev. #32]
* Costa Rica Debi Nova [Prev. #35]
* France Amir [Prev. #31 for  Israel]
* Indonesia GAC [Prev. #31]
* Kosovo Kida [Prev. #37]
* Liechtenstein Faun [Prev. #35]
* Mexico Jesse & Joy [Prev. 29]
* Morocco Samira Said [Prev. #05, #06, #08, #09, #10, #12, #13, #14, #15, #16, #24, #25, #26]
* Puerto Rico Luis Fonsi [Prev. #34]
* Puerto Rico Demi Lovato [Prev. #25 for  United States]
* Slovakia Lina Mayer [Prev. #35, #37]
* Turkey Hadise [Prev. #09, #29]

## Semi-final allocation draw

The draw that determined the semi-final allocation was held on 27th October. The participating countries, excluding the automatic finalists  Canada,  Italy,  Kosovo,  Slovakia,  Sweden and the host nation  Bulgaria. 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  Bulgaria,  Italy and  Sweden would vote in semi final #01 and  Canada,  Kosovo and  Slovakia 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

**20 Countries** are participating in this Semi Final with  **Bulgaria**,  **Italy** and  **Sweden** 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

**19 Countries** are participating in this Semi Final with  **Canada**,  **Kosovo** and  **Slovakia** 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  Canada,  Italy,  Kosovo,  Slovakia,  Sweden and the host nation  Bulgaria.

The draw on  Canada,  Italy,  Kosovo,  Slovakia,  Sweden and the host nation  Bulgaria. 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

First half of results

Second half of results

### Voting Grid

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

     Voter was replaced
     Qualified

Here is how the world voted in the grand final.

     Voter was replaced