Zandoli Song Contest

Zandoli Song Contest, often shortened to Zandoli, or just ZSC, is a fan contest, previously known as Our Eurovision Song Contest from Seasons 1 to 27. The contest has had of a mixture of seasons, each with their own theme. This included Eurovision themed contests, non-Eurovision themed contests, and All Stars editions. From Season 28, All Stars editions were incorporated into their own separate seasons.

History
The first edition of the contest was announced on 17th of April 2019, with the upload of the video titled "CHOOSE OUR EUROVISION: ESC 2000 PICK THE FIRST 2 SEMI FINALISTS". The semi-finals of the first season were uploaded to ESC Portugal's YouTube channel (Link: ) towards the end of April in 2019. The first non-Eurovision edition of the contest was Season 3 and this remains as the contest with the most views on YouTube.

There have also been quite a few Eurovision themed seasons, with 6 in total. Each of these seasons also had their own individual theme.

The first All Stars edition of the contest was Season 6, and there have now been 4 editions of All Stars in total, the other ones being Season 14 Season 20, and Season 26.

From Season 11 onwards some content related to Our Eurovision was moved away from the main channel to a second channel simply called "Our Eurovision". (Link: ).

After Season 27, Our Eurovision transitioned into Zandoli Song Contest following ESC Portugal's resignation and a new mod team taking over.

Application
To apply, a jury must have 4 countries ready that they want to compete with and they must be listed in order of preference. Here's an example of a typical application:

A new rule was introduced after Season 13; the juries who finished from 2nd-6th in the previous season get to choose their country before applications are opened. This is known as the Big 5.

Songs
Traditionally, in a non-Eurovision themed season, Zandoli Song Contest will consist of 50 songs. A jury will receive a country they applied for and will then send a song from that country. There are a lot of rules to follow to make sure a song is eligible to compete:


 * 1) The chosen song must not exceed 50 million views.
 * 2) The chosen video must be shorter than 7 minutes.
 * 3) The chosen artist must have some relation to the country you have applied for.
 * 4) Covers are not allowed.
 * 5) There are no restrictions on what year the song was released.

Juries
Once picked, there are also a lot of rules the juries must follow:


 * 1) The juries must not reveal any of their votes or rankings.
 * 2) Random voting is not accepted.
 * 3) Juries cannot vote in the televote poll, otherwise they will be immediately disqualified.
 * 4) The winning jury must keep their country for the following season.
 * 5) Juries were not allowed to reveal their countries/songs. (this rule only applied in Season 5, Season 6, Season 9, Season 10 and Season 11.)

Voting
Once the semi final or final videos have been uploaded to YouTube, the vote will then be opened. The time allowed to vote is usually 2 days. Any jury who does not vote within that allowed timeframe will be disqualified and will not be allowed to take part for 3 seasons.

Unless the season is televote only, the voting system is the same as the one that is used in the Eurovision Song Contest. Juries will give 12 points to their favourite song, 10 points to their 2nd favourite, 8 points to their 3rd favourite etc, and they are not allowed to vote for themselves. Here's an example:

Semi Finals
In every season, there have been 2 semi finals. From Season 7 onwards, one semi final will have one less song, and the host country will be allocated to also vote the smaller semi final. Therefore, half of the juries will vote in one semi and half in the other. A crossvote was introduced in Season 11, where the juries are allowed to vote in the other semi final. All crossvotes are counted as part of the semi final televote. 12 songs qualify from each semi final.

Wildcard
Introduced in Season 7, the songs which finish 13th and 14th in their respective semi finals will be up for the wildcard. The wildcard is the last spot in the final, and the vote reopens for another 24 hours. It used to be televote only, but this was changed in Season 13. The song with the most votes of the 4 will qualify for the Grand Final.

Grand Final
Usually, 26 songs will compete in the Grand Final, the 24 qualifiers, the host country and the wildcard. All 50 juries have to vote, whether they have qualified or not. The vote is always a 50-50 split between juries and televote, in a non-Eurovision season or All Stars. The song with the most points is then declared as the winner of the season.

A notable exception to this is Season 17. Due to a higher number of countries than expected, the format changed for that season. The wildcard was scrapped for the first and, so far, only time. There was also 1 extra song in the final, as 13 songs qualified from the semi finals instead of 12.

Contests
Here are all the contests that have taken place so far.

Non-Eurovision seasons

 * - The 28th season of Zandoli took place in York, England, despite Lithuania winning in Season 27 as the original juror no longer participated.

OESC All Stars
All Stars contests bring back the songs which finished in 2nd-11th place to compete against each other again. This was changed for the third All Stars so that only 2nd-6th place songs qualify.

Zandoli All Stars
All Stars contests bring back the songs which finished in 2nd-6th place to compete against each other again.

Winning Songs
There have been several winners in the history of Zandoli Song Contest. Here is a list of them all.