The countdown to Junior Eurovision is officially on.
Saturday 30 October marks exactly 50 days until the grand final of the 19th annual Junior Eurovision Song Contest, held this year in Paris’ La Seine Musicale on Sunday 19 December.
But before we pack our bags and jet off to France, let’s build some hype.
Here’s a closer look at five reasons why we’re excited for Junior Eurovision 2021.
Junior Eurovision 2021: Five reasons to get excited
1. Eurovision is back in France
Junior Eurovision 2021 marks the first Eurovision event to be held in France in more than two decades.
The country last hosted Eurovision Young Dancers 1999 in Lyon, with Germany taking home the crown. The last time France hosted a Eurovision song contest was in 1978, after Marie Miryam’s win with “L’oiseau et l’enfant” — the country’s last main contest win to date.
Thanks to Valentina’s historic win at Junior Eurovision 2020 with “J’imagine”, Paris can revel in Eurovision glory once again.
Fans attending the contest at La Siene Musicale will be able to stroll along Parisian boulevards, see the capital’s iconic architecture and indulge in the finest French cuisine. What more could you want?
2. Eight returning countries
The coronavirus pandemic forced a number of countries to withdraw from the 2020 edition of the contest, reducing the number of participants to 12 — the lowest uptake since 2013.
But as restrictions ease, more countries are back on board to show their finest young talent on the European stage.
Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Ireland, Italy, North Macedonia and Portugal all return this year, bringing the total number of countries to 19. Moving on up!
3. Variety of languages
One of the rules of Junior Eurovision stipulates that all songs must be performed in one of the national languages of the country it represents.
At the adult contest, that rule was done away with in 1999, leading to an increased number of countries sending tracks in English year after year.
But if Rotterdam proved anything, it’s that you don’t need to sing in English to be popular. At Eurovision 2021, four out of the five songs in the top five — including the winning “Zitti e buoni” by Måneskin — were in languages other than English.
To date, 30 different languages have appeared at Junior Eurovision. In 2008, Georgia’s Bzikebi won the contest with “Bzz…” sung entirely in an imaginary language.
With 19 countries competing in Paris, we’re bound to get some diverse language bangers.
4. The festive theme
Paris’ Junior Eurovision theme has got us feeling all fuzzy and festive.
The contest’s slogan Imagine pays homage to Valentina’s winning track “J’imagine”. Meanwhile, the logo is a golden, shining triangular designed inspired by Christmas trees and of course, France’s iconic Eiffel tower.
Junior Eurovision is a cornerstone event in the Eurovision calendar as it signals to all of us to get ready for the holiday season.
This year’s contest is also being held closer to Christmas than ever, just six days before the big day (for countries that use the Gregorian calendar).
However you celebrate, get the decorations ready and cosy up for an excellent display of talent from Europe’s young pop stars.
5. Duckie Doo is back
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That’s right! Our most precious wiwiblogger Duckie Doo, child of Suzanne Adams, is on board to amp up the hype for Junior Eurovision.
Duckie Doo joined the team in May 2021 when Suzanne adopted him from The Student Hotel in Rotterdam.
Our poultry friend will be working hard to bring you all the latest coverage from La Seine Musicale.
Will we pick up some new friends on our travels through Paris? Only time will tell.
Are you excited for Junior Eurovision 2021? Who is your early pick to win? Sound off in the comments below.
Break
One thing is sure: Serbia will end in bottom 2. Saying that as a Serb.
JESC makes me want to sing “Another Brick In The Wall, Part Two” by Pink Floyd. 😀
wiwibloggs doesn’t frequently write a lot about Junior Eurovision, so it’s nice to see articles about it once a while. I bet the next time they post an article, it will be Once all 19 songs are out.
Have to say that after my criticism of the poor reporting by Wiwibloggs on the “Junior ESC” it turned to something better now ….and the fire just started in all the members of Wiwibloggs. I appreciate that a lot. Thank you guys and have a great time in Paris.
I would like an online televoting whose voters’ origin can be detected. it could possibly work similar to BBC’s iPlayer. even with VPN set to the UK as my virtual location, BBC can still detect me outside the UK. a similar method should be implemented for Junior Eurovision, making it unable for own-country voting. so the voting points could be distributed like this: – juries votes as usual (x sets of 1-8,10,12 points, with X as no. of participating countries) -televoting votes similar to the adult counterpart, but with online voting instead of call-and-text voting, with x+1 sets of 1-8,10,12… Read more »
Rifki – agree with you. The “voting for your own country thing” is against everything that the JESC / ESC stands for – in these modern technology times it should be possible to do an online vote for the songs and prevent a vote for the own country.
The question is, who are voting for their own country? Would it be the show’s target audience, which would be the people much younger than us? And you’d think because it is possible now as per the rules to vote for one own’s country that they’ll be able to get their preferred country to win year after year after year. But that hasn’t been the case since the present system was introduced. Poland’s back-to-back wins were all attributed to the merits of their two entries so surely anyone outside of Poland also voted for them. I know I did, being… Read more »
Shouldn’t only children vote? Adults decide everything else in the world, we should let them have this.
We’re more of a secondary demographic. We can vote but obviously, we are not the primary target demo the show is after so the voting would certainly skew younger.
I just think that the children’s favourite should be the winner, and what adults think is irrelevant.
I think I may have misread your initial reply to my post but yes, whatever the kids lean more towards you s what is preferable at the end of the day. Hence, I kinda see why it was made easier for them to vote.
I think Junior Eurovision is very big in Poland, probably the only country where it’s really popular. So a lot of Polish children watch, which makes the televote heavily skewed towards Poland.
But not always in the few years the present system has been in effect has Poland shown to have a televote advantage from the start with 2017 being a prime example. In 2020, Poland was not even among the top 3 in the televote.
There’s no available data for us to determine if a large percentage of voters are from a particular country, taking also into consideration votes coming from outside Europe, especially given the fact that online voters can vote for at least more than one country, allowing votes to be spread out.
I would care about JESC if the voting system was not so stupid you can litterally vote for your own country
At least people outside Europe can vote as well.
Roodi and James are both right with their comments – on the one hand voting for your own country should be forbidden …..and on the other hand it is awesome that the whole world is able to vote for their favorit songs.
I’d say the most important not-yet-acknowledged reason as to why you should look forward to JESC 2021, is because of how absurdly strong the contest has gotten over the recent few years. 2019 is probably the strongest edition as of now, and 2020 had tons of good songs too, despite the lower amount of competing countries. So far every song has a lot going for it already, so the quality will only go up further! 😀
This is off topic, but I have questions for X Factor Israel: I heard the first show would start today, I could be wrong tho. Is there any way to watch this live? Is there a site, which highlights the weekly results of the shows (for instance the best artist of the week, worst artist of the week)?
Yeah, tonight is/was the first night of X Factor Israel, but I don’t know what the results are from the auditions.
Let’s go Duckie Doo xD
i’m here for our poultry friend ! already a legend
Bring back the Eurovision Magic Circus Show.
i think russia’s gonna win the televote by a landslide and win the whole thing tbh
Why? Tbh don’t be so sure.
I love The Junior Eurovision Songcontest very much, I watch it every year. I can’t wait for december 19th to see the show and hear all the participating songs.
Already shaping up to be a good year. Malta is the only one I haven’t totally enjoyed so far.
Looking like a two-horse race between Spain and France for now (what else is new) but Albania might have a shot too. Rooting for a new country to win. I think Ireland have a chance if they give Maiu a song befitting his talents
Funny saying that it is between Spain and France but its more like between Poland and Russia. Since they are more consistent in people rankings, ranking them highly.
Poland might win the televote but it’s open season for the juries right now.
Poland really don’t care about JESC unless it’s hyped af in media for some reason or it happens in Poland. Don’t worry
at the moment the “race” for the win is between Poland and Russia (I still don’t understand why Russia revamps their song). France and Spain are very good – same is with Albania. Ukraine has one of the best singers but the song is not my cup of tea. Germany has a catchy song but we still wait for the final (revamped) version. Malta is okay but not super good. Serbia – I don’t know ….it is not for me. Netherlands have a mediocre ballad – but can finish in Top 10. I wait for Maléna from Armenia and for… Read more »
Honestly, despite Sara James having a fantastic voice, I’d say her song is at the same level as Ala Tracz’ I’ll Be Standing. It is the type of song the Eurovision Community predicts to come high (top 3), but will eventually do worse than expected.
I’d say it is between France and Russia so far, with maybe The Netherlands close behind (depending on the live performance it could either be a top 5 or a bottom 5 in December for The Netherlands).
You’re talking about the 50 people rankings on youtube or twitter, not really accurate and valid, ….. where was the last jesc and esc winners in these rankings for example? So you see it’s not these useless rankings who decide.
Lol don’t say that, you are going to make the polish angry.
So I’ve gathered
😉
? am only excited and will watch because the show will take place in Paris, France. First time ever France is hosting a ESC event since the 70s. It could be a rehearsal for the adult’s ESC contest.
Are you though? It’s hard too tell.