The Netherlands at Instaglobal Song Contest 11

The Netherlands participated in the 11th edition of Instaglobal in Peja, Kosovo for the 11th time. It was the first time that the country had to appear in the semi-finals and the 3rd time the country came in the top 5. Broadcaster AVROTROS was responsible for the Dutch entry and held a national final to determine their entry.

Due to the swap of the founding delegation from the Netherlands to New Zealand, the Netherlands lost its automatic seat in the finals. The new Dutch Head of Delegation was excited to bring new life into the Dutch entries, who didn't score that well all the time. He introduced a new national final format called *Nederlands Songfestival* (in English: Dutch Song Contest) to determine the Dutch entry for Instaglobal.

## Nederlands Songfestival

### Format

The format of this selection was the same as the Maltese selection of Instaglobal 10, *Malta's Instaglobal Challenge*. 6 artists would compete in 3 seperate battles. The winner of each battle would go to the final. The 3 finalists would then fight for the ticket to Peja. New was that the 2nd place would go to the Instaglobal Second Chance Contest, a new contest created to give participants of several national selections a second chance to show what they can.

#### The participants

The AVROTROS held a great talent scouting, on which they selected the 6 entries for Nederlands Songfestival. Surprisingly, AVROTROS didn't go for unknown talents but for famous Dutch artists. The artists that were chosen are (alphabetically):

* Afrojack (ft. Fais)
* Anouk
* Armin van Buuren ft. Mr. Probz
* Douwe Bob
* Martin Garrix & Bebe Rexha
* Sharon Doorson

None of these artists had ever represented the Netherlands at Instaglobal before this edition.

#### The Battles

The 6 artists were split up in 3 battles. The artists performed their song and after that the public could vote for their favourite song. Only the winner was announced after each battle, there were no points or votes announced.

**Battle 1:**

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**Battle 2:**

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**Battle 3:**

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#### The Final

In the final, the 3 winners of the battleround competed against each other to represent the Netherlands at Instaglobal 11. The artists performed their song again and now 20 Instaglobal delegations could vote for their favourite. The winner was eventually Martin Garrix & Bebe Rexha with 11 out of 20 votes. Anouk got the right to represent the country at SCC because of her 2nd place.

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## At Instaglobal

Martin & Bebe performed in Peja 8th in the first semi-final, after Mexico and before Israel. They achieved to win the first semi-final the Netherlands ever had to participate in with 115 points, although it was a tie with Alda from Iceland. In the final, the duo was a big favourite to win the contest, but had to give this honour away to DARA from Bulgaria. Martin & Bebe eventually came 5th with 163 points, which is still the 2nd best result ever for the Netherlands.

### Points awarded to the Netherlands

Semi-final
* Mexico
* Norway
* Slovakia
* Spain
* Ireland
* Israel
 5 points
 * Kosovo
* Iceland
* Italy

Final
* Jamaica
* Malaysia
* Slovenia
* Ukraine
* Ghana
* Norway
* Indonesia
* Iran
* Rest of the World
* Uzbekistan
 5 points
 * Australia
* France
* Romania
* Israel
* Denmark
* Taiwan
* United Kingdom

### At Second Chance

Because of no semi-finals, Anouk could start at the final in Calgary right away. She performed the first Dutch-languaged song that ever occurred on an Instaglobal event outside Junior Instaglobal. Anouk performed 16th, after winner South Korea and before Mexico. She didn't have the success that Martin & Bebe had in Peja: out of the 25 entries, Anouk only came 22nd with 33 points.