European Singing Competition 25

## European Singing Competition

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Next: 26

**European Singing Competition 25**, often referred to as ESC #25, is the twenty-third edition of European Singing Competition. The contest took place in Antwerp, Belgium. This is the first time that Belgium hosted the contest. The event was hosted by Victor Lazlo, Selah Sue and Laura Tesoro. The event was hosted in Sportpaleis with a capacity of  23.359.The host broadcaster was VRT.

As in the previous editions every nation was obliged to send a staging proposal alongside the song. It was announced that juries and televoters would give two separate scores in the semifinals as well.

Forty-five countries participated in the twenty-third edition. The participating countries, except of the host Belgium, Canada, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, Armenia and Greece, competed in two semi-finals. Greenland, Israel, Bulgaria, Portugal and Ukraine got promoted after qualifying from the Pre-Qualification Round 2. Austria was announced as a withdrawing country at first but later appeared in the list of confirmed countries. This was attributed to a mistake of the council. Another new rule is that if the 11th placed country of the semifinal with the more participants, in case of uneven amount of countries, has more points than the 10th of the other then it will also qualify.

The winner was the United Kingdom with the song "City of the Dead" by Eurielle which scored 494 points, winning by a margin of 192 points, the biggest margin ever, in front of Israel. The podium was completed by Greece, which finished on the third place. The host country Belgium ended 223rd.

## Location

The contest took place for the third time in the Belgium.

### Bidding phase and host city selection

**Key**:
     Host venue

 Brussels
 Ghent

## Returning Artists

This edition saw the return of Donny Montell, marking his second appearence for Lithuania. Jain also returned, again for France. Angelika Dusk, the first Greek entrant returned for Cyprus. Magic! will sing again for Palestine. Malik came back for Greenland, this time after getting promoted from the PQR. Amy Lee will sing again for the United States, this time solo after having previously sang as the frontwoman of Evanescence. Ruth Lorenzo will return for Spain. Bazart will represent once again the host country, Belgium. Zhanar Dugalova is set to mark her third appearence for Kazakhstan. Lenny will also make her third appearence for the Czech Republic.

## Participating countries

### **Semi-final 1**

Ninteen countries participated in the first semi-final. The ten highlighted ones qualified for the final. Every country in this semifinal voted alongside  Armenia, the host  Belgium and  Kazakhstan.

### **Semi-final 2**

Twenty countries participated in the first semi-final. The ten highlighted ones qualified for the final. Every country in this semifinal voted alongside  Canada,  Greece and  Luxembourg. Since the 11th placed country got more points than the 10th of the first semi we had 11 qualifiers.

### **Grand Final**

Twenty-seven countries participated in the final, with all 45 participating countries eligible to vote.

## Scoreboard

Semifinal 1

Semifinal 2

Final