Season 26

The **Regions Song Contest 26** was the **26th** edition of the discord contest Regions Song Contest. The contest took place in the city of **Jönköping**,  **Småland** after their win in Season 25 with the song "Cash Flow” by Nadia Tehran

It was the **third** time Sweden , had hosted any versions of the contest: the first time being in  Leksand for Season 15, and the second in  Uppsala for Season 22. This season consisted of two semi-finals held on August 10 and the grand final on August 25, 2022.
For the second time in RSC was hosted a **Community Region** voting, which this season decided of the song representing  New South Wales

All the live shows were hosted on YouTube as well as presented on the Discord server. Fifty-One entries took part in the **twenty-sixth** season of the contest. Each region had to compete with one song.

The winner was Mert, the HoD of  **Munster** with the song **"All Ours"** performed by **Talos** with **197** points.

### Participating Regions

**12** regions debuted in this edition:  Buzău,  Dakar,  Daejeon,  Eastern Cape,  Granma,  Kwilu,  Lima,  Prince Edward Island,  South Bohemia,  Sud-Ouest,  Vaduz,  Western Greece,

**4** countries debuted in this edition:  Cuba ( Granma),  Liechtenstein ( Vaduz),  Peru ( Lima) and  Senegal ( Dakar)

The Top 05 juries of the twenty-fifth edition was part of the **Big 05** and so on, was automatically qualified for the Grand Final. The Big 05 regions were:

* **Småland - Host Region**
* Seoul Capital Area
* Western Greece
* Vestland
* Munster

### Hosting Informations

#### Host City

After  Småland's win in Bergen, the  Småland delegation shortly announced that the **26th** season would well be hosted in **Jönköping**, which is the largest city (by far) within the region.  Jönköping is a city in southern  Sweden with 139,222 inhabitants (2022). Jönköping is situated at the southern end of Sweden's second largest lake, Vättern, in the province of  Småland. Jönköping is an old trading centre (Köping) situated at a natural crossroads for routes following the rivers Nissan and Lagan, and the road connecting the provinces of Östergötland and  Västergötland, a result of the town's geographical position at the southern end of lake Vättern, which divides the two provinces.
On 18 May 1284 Jönköping became the first City in Sweden to be granted its rights by king Magnus Ladulås, who ruled mostly from Vättern's largest island Visingsö.[clarification needed] The first part of the city's name, "Jön", is derived from a creek, "Junebäcken", in Talavid, in what is now the western part of the city. The second part of the name "köping", is, as mentioned above, an old word for a trading centre or market place.
The geographical position of the city also left it vulnerable to attack via the river routes that led south, mainly from Danes. At that time the provinces of what is today southern Sweden — Scania, Halland and Blekinge — belonged to Denmark. The city was plundered and burned several times until it was fortified during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Jönköping was known for its matchstick industry between 1845 and 1970. The phosphorus match was invented in 1831, and these matches became very popular because one could strike it against any surface to ignite it. However, the problem was that they ignited too easily, caused a lot of accidents and were toxic. In 1844, Swedish professor Gustav Erik Pasch patented a new invention, ”Safety matches - Strike against the box only”. To prevent the matches from igniting so easily, Gustav Erik Pasch separated the chemicals in the match head and placed the phosphorus on a separate surface on the outside of the box for striking ignition. Johan Edvard and Carl Frans Lundström took Pasch's patent and improved it. Later, they manufactured their new Safety matches in their factory in Jönköping. Today it is an important Nordic logistical center, with many companies' central warehouses (such as Elkjøp, IKEA, Electrolux and Husqvarna) situated there.

#### Arena

**Spira Culture Center** (Kulturhuset Spira) is a cultural center mainly for the performing arts in  Jönköping, inaugurated on November 11, 2011. In the building, Småland's Music and Theater puts on stage performances in several genres with around 800 concerts and other performances per year. Spira Culture Center is designed by Gert Wingårdh and Jonas Edblad at Wingårdh arkitektkontor. The facade of white, clear and colored glass sweeps in a spiral shape around the building. This form gave the name "Spi'ra" as the name of the architectural proposal in the competition 2006-07. The main ideas of the architecture, with all public areas organized on the same level, were already formulated in the competition proposal and have been largely implemented in the finished building. The glass designer Ingegerd Råman has designed five lamps for the foyer . The spiral lamps are manufactured by Haboföretaget Fagerhults Belysning Sverige AB . The interactive artwork Soundflower by Milo Lavén, with five tin telephones, stands on the grassy knoll outside the house. Kulturhuset Spira is the country's first "green" cultural building and has a clear environmental profile. The venue has a capacity of **1.700**.

#### Hosts

The hosts of the **26th** edition were :

* **Cornelia Jakobs**, born Anna Cornelia Jakobsdotter Samuelsson is a  swedish singer-songwriter from / Stockholm. Cornelia is best known for getting Sweden a fourth place at the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 with "Hold Me Closer". Before that, Cornelia also reached the 1st place in final in the 21st Regions Song Contest, representing  Uppland with "Weight Of The World".
* **Omar Rudberg**, born Omar Josué González is a  Venezuela born,  swedish singer and actor from Åsa,  Halland. He was a member of the boyband FO&O between 2013 and 2017. He participated in Melodifestivalen 2017 broadcast on SVT along with the band, making it to the final with the song "Gotta Thing About You". In 2017 the band revealed that they have decided to disband. Omar launched his solo career in 2018, with the single "Que pasa". It was later revealed that he would participate in Melodifestivalen 2019 with the song "Om om och om igen". "Om om och om igen" failed to qualify from the heats, but gave Rudberg his first solo top 20 hit in Sweden. Rudberg played Simon, a lead character in the 2021 Netflix series Young Royals. He participated in Melodifestivalen 2022 with the song "Moving Like That", but failed to qualify from the heats.

### Results

#### Semi-Final 01

The 1st Semi-Final took place in Spira Culture Center on August 10, 2022. 23 songs competed in it, and 3 of the 5 prequalified regions voted ( Western Greece,  Seoul Capital Area and  Vestland), as well as having their song presented. 1 of the participating regions failed to vote, and a total of 14 sets of televotes were counted.

#### Semi-Final 02

The 2nd Semi-Final took place in Spira Culture Center on August 10, 2022. 23 songs competed in it, and the last 2 of the 5 prequalified regions voted ( Småland and  Munster), as well as having their song presented. 2 of the participating regions failed to vote, and a total of 17 sets of televotes were counted.

#### Golden Ticket

The Golden Ticket sees compete all the songs that failed to qualify, out of which RBU members can vote for 2 songs each. This season, **36** members voted and  **Prince Edward Island** was declared a finalist.