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Voting system in 2021

Loindici

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i wonder with covid on board, do you think there would be any changes with the voting system? share your thoughts here xheart
 

Matt

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This!

And yeah... we've all seen what a "one-off thing" means in reality...

While I do "get" the point of allowing backing vocals, it's really a slippery slope from there in regards to keeping the contest fair, transparent and all those things (which the EBU already struggles with due to questionable choices and actions), I'm afraid this just opens up the Pandora's box even further with playback shows and cheatings xshrug

When you say that you get the point of allowing backup vocals, I assume you are referring to next years ESC and not in general terms, right? Cause I would also understand and support reducing the number of performers on stage due to the unique circumstances in 2021. But other than that, it should always be life. I know the likes of Bjorkman and others have been pushing for pre recorded vocals for years and now I'm completely certain that this rule change is staying for good and I don't get the point of that at all.
 

Loindici

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Oh, this yes! I've been mentioning it pretty much every year since the random draw was exchanged with the current corrupt and non-transparent "producers choose the running order". They want a good show and diverse mix of the entries to keep a good flow, which is completely understandable, but is it really so hard to just introduce genre/"style" pots then and just draw randomly from those pots? xshrug

I guess it isn't technically practical to make genre pots. There might be a pre-analysis for some songs that is considered a fusion of genres. Would songs in non-fitting genres be put in a 'miscellaneous' pot?

And does it draw for all the semifinal songs? I guess it's possible but we'll probably get the draw at end of March to beginning of April, which is waaaay later than the usual end of January.

But yes, I'd love the return of random draws. You never know when your favorites gonna perform from, and I think it's exciting.
 

Loindici

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Cause I would also understand and support reducing the number of performers on stage due to the unique circumstances in 2021. ... I'm completely certain that this rule change is staying for good and I don't get the point of that at all.

I feel allowing pre-recs because of "unique circumstances" doesn't count. Like the former contests, support vocals can be put backstage and for 2021 it is possible to socially distance them in the same space. The dancers can be asked to wear masks when performing. So yeah, I still don't see why. Might they want to reduce number of hotel rooms booked for the delegations?
 

Matt

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I feel allowing pre-recs because of "unique circumstances" doesn't count. Like the former contests, support vocals can be put backstage and for 2021 it is possible to socially distance them in the same space. The dancers can be asked to wear masks when performing. So yeah, I still don't see why. Might they want to reduce number of hotel rooms booked for the delegations?

Don't get me wrong, I still don't think they should do it, but at least they have a case to make in a Covid environment. In regards to dancers, you don't have to have them so I think they are trying to apply the same logic here. Or at least that is their explanation as I personally think that this was just a cheap way to introduce pre-recorded backup vocals and keep them anyway cause it worked so well blah blah blah.
 

A-lister

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When you say that you get the point of allowing backup vocals, I assume you are referring to next years ESC and not in general terms, right? Cause I would also understand and support reducing the number of performers on stage due to the unique circumstances in 2021. But other than that, it should always be life. I know the likes of Bjorkman and others have been pushing for pre recorded vocals for years and now I'm completely certain that this rule change is staying for good and I don't get the point of that at all.

No, I get it from a show and technical perspective, since it fits better with some type of songs (especially very modern ones with heavy productions, effects and/-or vocal layers) and therefore not allowing it can make these entries lose quite much of their dynamics if all vocals (including the backing ones) need to be 100% live and limited to just a few people (so at times there need to be a compromise between the live show and the vocal delivery as well, which can take away from the performance-vision of the entry if you for instance need to limit the amount of needed backing dancers to make room for backing singers instead to somewhat keep the vocal balance but with an end-product still coming across as empty for that particular entry).

With that said, I completely agree with you that all vocals should remain live with no exceptions, but mostly from a perspective of fairness since I'm afraid allowing backing vocals will be taken advantage of and create unnecessary additional drama to the contest, and also even in the case with some entries losing some of their dynamics, I still believe all vocals should be live to keep the live experience of the contest. I would however look into the option of increasing the allowed number of people on stage though as a compromise, but yeah maybe not for 2021 then but for future editions.
 
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anto475

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Oh, this yes! I've been mentioning it pretty much every year since the random draw was exchanged with the current corrupt and non-transparent "producers choose the running order". They want a good show and diverse mix of the entries to keep a good flow, which is completely understandable, but is it really so hard to just introduce genre/"style" pots then and just draw randomly from those pots? xshrug
Not even pots are necessary, just do a random draw and then, if it's case that three ballads or three pop songs end up being in a row, just shuffle them around. It's not hard and it's the best of both worlds. For my blog I've randomly chosen the songs that I'll feature but I move them around if there's two from the same country/year in a row, it's easy.
 

A-lister

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I guess it isn't technically practical to make genre pots. There might be a pre-analysis for some songs that is considered a fusion of genres. Would songs in non-fitting genres be put in a 'miscellaneous' pot?

And does it draw for all the semifinal songs? I guess it's possible but we'll probably get the draw at end of March to beginning of April, which is waaaay later than the usual end of January.

But yes, I'd love the return of random draws. You never know when your favorites gonna perform from, and I think it's exciting.

I mean if someone wants to complicate things they can :lol: , but it's still a more fair and transparent solution than the current one .

I am not sure I get your question? The initial draw is just to allocate countries and put them into into either the first or second half of the semi right? The producers are still choosing the running order later on, so I guess with the suggestion I put forward we could still keep the initial draw and then simply have a second one to allocate the songs.
 

A-lister

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Not even pots are necessary, just do a random draw and then, if it's case that three ballads or three pop songs end up being in a row, just shuffle them around. It's not hard and it's the best of both worlds. For my blog I've randomly chosen the songs that I'll feature but I move them around if there's two from the same country/year in a row, it's easy.

Yeah, this makes even more sense (to simplify things), and I agree it's a good compromise if they don't want to sit and make up genre/tempo pots.
 

Loindici

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I mean if someone wants to complicate things they can :lol: , but it's still a more fair and transparent solution than the current one .

I am not sure I get your question? The initial draw is just to allocate countries and put them into into either the first or second half of the semi right? The producers are still choosing the running order later on, so I guess with the suggestion I put forward we could still keep the initial draw and then simply have a second one to allocate the songs.

Oooh, I though you suggested bringing in genre pots only. That's interesting: so as example a country allocation could be done in January and the genre allocation could be done after all of the songs are released.

Yeah, I'm down with that. xheart
 

empo21

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I dislike the producer picked running draw, but the random draw could also be messy sometimes.

I think they should split the semis/finals in 4 quarters (instead of halves) so each group has less songs with less chance of getting a pimp slot. Countries like Australia, Sweden would always get a 8-13 spot if drawn 1st half in the final and splitting to 4 would make sure that countries don't get special treatment (or get less of).
 

MAD20

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In my opinion I think the spokesperson should give again 8, 10 and 12 points, or at least 10 and 12. It would be really exciting as only jury vote does not carry the neighbour voting from the televote. However, if show would take much longer, I would give a maximum time for each person to give the votes, because many countries speak a lot before giving the points, delaying the show and in some cases being a bit annoying.
 

Iker

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Oh, this yes! I've been mentioning it pretty much every year since the random draw was exchanged with the current corrupt and non-transparent "producers choose the running order". They want a good show and diverse mix of the entries to keep a good flow, which is completely understandable, but is it really so hard to just introduce genre/"style" pots then and just draw randomly from those pots? xshrug
This idea has never occured to me! It's a nice compromise because as it stands now it screams rigged. Most often one can even guess correctly who will get that infamous no 2 spot as well.
 

Loindici

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IIRC the producing team of 2021 consists of Dutch people only, but there's Österdahl, so we'll see if any 'special treatment' will be given to Sweden just because our supervisor guy is a Swede.
 
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