Following the cancellation of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, several major Eurovision websites have joined forces to organise the first-ever 100% online edition of the Contest. Eurostream 2020 will be held on May 5, 6 and 9.
Under the joint name Eurostream 2020, three scheduled live shows (with two Semi-Finals culminating in one Grand Final) will be broadcast online for viewers around the world. The Semi-Finals will take place on Tuesday 5 and Thursday 7 May, starting at 21:00 CET. The same countries that were supposed to participate in the Semi-Finals of Eurovision 2020 will take part in the Semi-Finals of Eurostream 2020, with ten countries from each broadcast advancing to the Grand Final based on the votes of national juries consisting of music professionals (50%) and online public voting (50%). Just like at Eurovision, the qualifiers will be announced in a random order, with detailed results to be released following the Final.
The same voting system will be applied to compile the results for the Grand Final of Eurostream 2020, to be held on Saturday 9 May, at 21:00 CET. The twenty qualifiers from the Semi-Finals will be joined by the countries of the Big 5 (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom) and the 2020 host country, The Netherlands, who are already pre-qualified for the Grand Final.
There will be no live performances from the artists during the live shows of Eurostream 2020. Instead, snippets of the official preview videos will be shown. Editors from several Eurovision websites will be joining via live stream to comment on the songs and their chances, and you can expect several surprises during the three scheduled live shows.
Our partners at ESCplus España together with their podcast EurovisionDaily are preparing a simulcast coverage of all the shows, providing live commentary in Spanish. The show will be broadcasted live on live.esc-plus.com with Marina García being the host.
Prior to the live shows, draws will be held to determine the running order for the two Semi-Finals. These will take place on Tuesday 21 and 28 April, respectively, and will also be broadcast online. The schedule for the online broadcasts of Eurostream 2020, subject to change, can be found underneath:
- Tuesday 21 April: Draw Semi-Final 1 (20:00 CET)
- Tuesday 28 April: Draw Semi-Final 2 (20:00 CET)
- Tuesday 5 May: Semi-Final 1 (21:00 CET)
- Thursday 7 May: Semi-Final 2 (21:00 CET)
- Saturday 9 May: Grand Final (21:00 CET)
Eurostream 2020 is a joint project between the following partners, listed here alphabetically: 12 Points From America, aussievision.net, Ding-a-Dong Podcast, escdaily.com, escgo.com, escinsight.com, esckaz.com, escnation.com, escplus.es, esc-plus.com, escxtra.com, eurovisionary.com, eurovisionunion.com, eurovisionuniverse.com, EuroWhat? Podcast, evrovizija.rs, scorewiz.eu, songfestival.be and songfestivalweblog.nl.
Eurostream 2020 can be found on Facebook and Twitter, where the latest information about the upcoming event will be shared. For answers on more practical questions regarding the project, broadcasts and voting, please visit eurostream2020.com.