Today, EBU has revealed details about the online voting that will decide half of the outcome of this year’s Junior Eurovision. Like last year, this system will let fans vote for their own country, while people worldwide will be able to vote for their favourites, both for free.
The online voting method will have two different rounds:
- First phase: The voting window will be open from Friday 23rd until Sunday 25th when the show starts, at 15.59 CET. People will be required to watch a preview of all the 20 performances before entering the voting platform that will be available on the JESC official website. Then, they will be able to vote for 3, 4 or 5 of the competing countries.
- Second phase: When all the songs have been performed at the live final, the voting will be open again for 15 min. Last year, the voting website crashed during this stage of the voting, so some people couldn’t cast their votes after watching the full final performances. Hopefully, it won’t happen again!
A combination of both rounds of voting will decide 50% of the final outcome, while the other half will be decided by a professional jury panel, made up of adults and kids, in each country.
Stage construction begins
The construction of the stage on which the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2018 will be a reality has begun inside the Minsk Arena. As in previous years, the works are supervised by the Swedish Head of Production Ola Melzig, who will bring us updates from the arena.
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The stage of this year’s Junior Eurovision has been designed by Galina Gomonova, who was inspired by her previous works at the Belarusian finals for both Eurovision and Junior Eurovision. Galina studied at the Academy of Architecture in Belarus and she is a member of the Belarusian Union of Designers. She has also worked on the most popular TV shows in her country.
The set design includes a 14-meter circular main stage and a smaller circular stage of 7 meters connected to the main stage by a 7-meter long bridge.
Do you like the current voting system? Do you think voting for your own country is fair? What would you do to improve it? Let us know in comments!