Here are the preliminary schedules for ETNW 2012, which will obviously depend on how many entries we get and therefore how many semi-finals we need.
-----
Opening ceremony: Monday 2 January 2012
Submissions open: Wednesday 4 January 2012
Submissions close: Friday 13 January 2012
-----
Scenario 1: Final only
Voting starts: Sunday 15 January 2012
Voting ends: Sunday 22 January 2012
Sponsor revelation: Monday 23 January 2012
Results: Tuesday 24 January 2012
Scenario 2: Two semi-finals + final
Voting - Semi 1 starts: Sunday 15 January 2012
Voting - Semi 2 starts: Wednesday 18 January 2012
Voting - Semi 1 ends: Sunday 22 January 2012
Voting - Semi 2 ends: Wednesday 25 January 2012
Qualifier revelation: Thursday 26 January 2012
Voting - Final starts: Thursday 26 January 2012
Voting - Final ends: Wednesday 1 February 2012
Sponsor revelation & results: Thursday 2 February 2012
Scenario 3: Three semi-finals + final
Voting - Semi 1 starts: Sunday 15 January 2012
Voting - Semi 2 starts: Thursday 19 January 2012
Voting - Semi 1 ends: Sunday 22 January 2012
Voting - Semi 3 starts: Monday 23 January 2012
Voting - Semi 2 ends: Thursday 26 January 2012
Voting - Semi 3 ends: Monday 30 January 2012
Qualifier revelation: Tuesday 31 January 2012
Voting - Final starts: Tuesday 31 January 2012
Voting - Final ends: Monday 6 February 2012
Sponsor revelation & results: Tuesday 7 February 2012
-----
The schedule will of course be confirmed once we know our number of entries. Keep your eyes open for updates!
12/21/2011
ETNW 2012: The rules
If this doesn’t cover everything, ask me and I’ll answer. And let everyone else know, too, just to be on the safe side ;)
*****
RULES
1. Songs from any country and any year can be entered for any country and any year.
2. Songs can be in any language and any length.
3. No songs that have taken part in Eurovision or a national selection process.
4. No cover versions.
5. NEW! Singers may have taken part in a national selection process but not taken part in Eurovision itself.
*****
Now for the explanations… :D
First and foremost, remember that the idea of ETNW is to enter songs that make people go "hmmm, that really does sound like something Albania might have entered in 1978!" or "yep, I can see Portugal picking something like that in 2002". The more plausible your combination – a Russian song recorded in 1980 being entered as Russia 1981, for example, as opposed to, say, a song in Armenian recorded in 2006 being submitted as Ireland 1991 – the more likely it is that voters will view it as ‘authentic’.
That, of course, is the big unwritten rule of ETNW: when you vote, it’s not [just] about what you do or don’t like, but [also] what you think comes across as most authentic based on the year and country a song’s been allocated to. True, it’s subjective, and some people have struggled with it a bit in previous contests, but last year’s results in particular showed that most were happy to embrace the idea. Like it or not, it is the point of the contest.
Well, one of them. The other main one is that although it’s designed to find songs that feel like they could have been Eurovision entries, ETNW as a contest – like all MB contests, really – still encourages ‘new’ music. So while the earlier rules about ‘no Eurovision composers’ and ‘no national final singers’ have been dropped, I’d recommend you look for something that’s totally unconnected to ESC but would still fit rather than something (or someone) closely connected to it that just never made it.
And just to clarify point #5 of the rules, I’m drawing the line at ESC performers as credited on screen or forming part of a duo/group/whatever as credited. I’d still prefer it if your singer never made it onto an ESC stage at all, but if they were Obscure Backing Vocalist #4 for Austria in Zagreb in 1990 or whatever and that’s their only claim to ESC fame (apart from a million national final appearances), I won't kick up a fuss. Of course, the voters might… ;)
Oh, and remember that the ‘any country’ thing is still limited to countries that have actually taken part in Eurovision!
Submission aren’t yet open, but just so you know, this is what you’ll eventually need to send me:
1. An MP3 of your entry
2. The name of your song and singer
3. The year and country you’re allocating it to
4. Your MB nickname
All of this will be repeated when the submission period opens, needless to say. Until then… start trawling through those MP3s!
*****
RULES
1. Songs from any country and any year can be entered for any country and any year.
2. Songs can be in any language and any length.
3. No songs that have taken part in Eurovision or a national selection process.
4. No cover versions.
5. NEW! Singers may have taken part in a national selection process but not taken part in Eurovision itself.
*****
Now for the explanations… :D
First and foremost, remember that the idea of ETNW is to enter songs that make people go "hmmm, that really does sound like something Albania might have entered in 1978!" or "yep, I can see Portugal picking something like that in 2002". The more plausible your combination – a Russian song recorded in 1980 being entered as Russia 1981, for example, as opposed to, say, a song in Armenian recorded in 2006 being submitted as Ireland 1991 – the more likely it is that voters will view it as ‘authentic’.
That, of course, is the big unwritten rule of ETNW: when you vote, it’s not [just] about what you do or don’t like, but [also] what you think comes across as most authentic based on the year and country a song’s been allocated to. True, it’s subjective, and some people have struggled with it a bit in previous contests, but last year’s results in particular showed that most were happy to embrace the idea. Like it or not, it is the point of the contest.
Well, one of them. The other main one is that although it’s designed to find songs that feel like they could have been Eurovision entries, ETNW as a contest – like all MB contests, really – still encourages ‘new’ music. So while the earlier rules about ‘no Eurovision composers’ and ‘no national final singers’ have been dropped, I’d recommend you look for something that’s totally unconnected to ESC but would still fit rather than something (or someone) closely connected to it that just never made it.
And just to clarify point #5 of the rules, I’m drawing the line at ESC performers as credited on screen or forming part of a duo/group/whatever as credited. I’d still prefer it if your singer never made it onto an ESC stage at all, but if they were Obscure Backing Vocalist #4 for Austria in Zagreb in 1990 or whatever and that’s their only claim to ESC fame (apart from a million national final appearances), I won't kick up a fuss. Of course, the voters might… ;)
Oh, and remember that the ‘any country’ thing is still limited to countries that have actually taken part in Eurovision!
Submission aren’t yet open, but just so you know, this is what you’ll eventually need to send me:
1. An MP3 of your entry
2. The name of your song and singer
3. The year and country you’re allocating it to
4. Your MB nickname
All of this will be repeated when the submission period opens, needless to say. Until then… start trawling through those MP3s!
Coming soon: ETNW 2012
If you’re reading this, you must have stumbled across it by accident or been checking the site for updates, thus showing a remarkable (if slightly worrying) enthusiasm for the contest. Or seen whatever it is I’ll’ve posted by now on the message board on www.escnation.com. In any event, welcome to the no-submissions-aren’t-open prologue to the Eurovision That Never Was 2012!
For those of you who have no idea what ETNW is about… well, in a nutshell, it’s this: have you ever heard a song and immediately thought “That sounds just like the kind of thing Finland would have entered in the mid-’80s/Georgia would have come up with had they been taking part in 1963/Luxembourg would have sent to Düsseldorf if they were still in it”? If so, this is your chance to see whether others agree with you.
The third edition of ETNW will have the same set-up as the previous two, more or less, but the rules have again changed slightly, so check them out in the next post. (I’m also planning to do something innovative* with the voting, but more on that later.) You won’t be able to submit anything for a while yet; I’ll let you know the email address in due course.
In the meantime, get your thinking caps on about the kind of thing you might want to enter. While the 2010 edition made a good start, the 2011 edition was even better, with people getting more of a handle on and even more into the spirit of the contest, so let’s see if we can keep that up in 2012.
Further updates will follow the rules post, all of which will be signposted on the MB and Facebook. So no excuses for missing anything ;) Enjoy the Eurovision That Never Was 2012!
*in the sense of it not having been done before with an MB contest, to the best of my knowledge; not never having been done before. And kinda retro anyway, which is in keeping with the feel of the contest! Anyway, more on that down the line :)
For those of you who have no idea what ETNW is about… well, in a nutshell, it’s this: have you ever heard a song and immediately thought “That sounds just like the kind of thing Finland would have entered in the mid-’80s/Georgia would have come up with had they been taking part in 1963/Luxembourg would have sent to Düsseldorf if they were still in it”? If so, this is your chance to see whether others agree with you.
The third edition of ETNW will have the same set-up as the previous two, more or less, but the rules have again changed slightly, so check them out in the next post. (I’m also planning to do something innovative* with the voting, but more on that later.) You won’t be able to submit anything for a while yet; I’ll let you know the email address in due course.
In the meantime, get your thinking caps on about the kind of thing you might want to enter. While the 2010 edition made a good start, the 2011 edition was even better, with people getting more of a handle on and even more into the spirit of the contest, so let’s see if we can keep that up in 2012.
Further updates will follow the rules post, all of which will be signposted on the MB and Facebook. So no excuses for missing anything ;) Enjoy the Eurovision That Never Was 2012!
*in the sense of it not having been done before with an MB contest, to the best of my knowledge; not never having been done before. And kinda retro anyway, which is in keeping with the feel of the contest! Anyway, more on that down the line :)
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
