As we all know Eurovision 2020 was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Heartbreaking, no doubt. But now OGAE International has launched a contest to try and answer that lingering question: Who would’ve taken the trophy home in Rotterdam?
It was a fairly open year, with several fan favourites, including the likes of Bulgaria, Iceland, Lithuania, Malta, Switzerland, Italy and even our Wiwi Jury 2020 winner, Ben Dolic from Germany, considered to be “in the race”. We will never get closure on who actually would’ve taken the contest to their home country had this year’s edition gone ahead. But the fan club network is running the Eurovision Fan Contest to decide on its winner.
Now, it’s important to bear in mind that the actual result of the real contest is largely decided by people who are not Eurofans. They won’t have spent months refining their Top 41. Many would’ve heard only of their country’s act prior to the show (and in many cases, not even that would have been true). Nonetheless, it’s exciting to see who’d have won in this poll.
This is open to anyone, not just OGAE members from around the world, so unlike the usual OGAE poll — done every year to decide the winner from each country’s club — this will reflect a wider audience of fans. You can register to be part of the event on this link here.
Last year’s OGAE vote crowned Italy’s Mahmood the winner with his r’n’b-tinged track “Soldi”. The song went on to be the actual runner-up in Tel Aviv in May. The poll proved to be a good predictor: it put Switzerland’s Luca Hänni in second place (he ultimately finished fourth) and Dutchie Duncan Laurence in third. He, of course, won the actual show.
In the previous year, much like at Eurovision, Netta triumphed. But second and third placers France and Finland fared less well in Lisbon.
Who do you think will win the OGAE Fan Contest 2020? Do you think they’d have also won the Eurovision Song Contest in Rotterdam? Let us know what you think in the comments below. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter HERE. You can also catch our latest interviews, new and reviews on wiwi.tv.
Actually, with more and more focus on app voting/multiple voting (both of which are more likely to be done by Eurovision “fans” rather than the general public), the OGAE vote is becoming even more reflective of what the televote actually looks like.
So if the results are what they often are, we will at least know which song would not have won… joking of course.
Bulgaria, had, best, ever, chance, of, winning, bit, of, jingle, bells, verse, vibe, from, chorus, of, song
Italy, Malta and Germany were not in the race for winning…
I think they were, or at least in contention for Top 5/10
Italy not in the race for winning with a great classy italian ballad? Last time we had an open year they came 2nd with a jazz ballad and there would’ve been extra focus on fai rumore this year with italy being the centre of corona crisis.
For Italy, we don’t even have to go back that far. We know 2018.
And for Malta or Germany.. They had Symphonix products and those usually have the juries boost but televote is there. Also Bulgaria.
Germany were
I believe Italy would have done very well with the jury and would have done okay with televote..but not enough to come top 10. Germany could have done well with jury and televote as well, but it not sure if they would have done well enough to be top 10 either. Malta would have won the juries without a doubt in my opinion and depending on vocal performance and stage presence, could have done very well in the televote, so Malta was very much in the running to win I think
As you say in the article, I don’t think this will give us a truly accurate picture of who would have won Eurovision 2020, but I think it might give us a good answer for what the jury results might have looked like. As you say, most people only watch the show on the night, and an instant reaction is likely to result in a different outcome than when you’ve heard the songs 100 times. But it will be fun nonetheless!