Georgia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2015

Background

Prior to the 2015 Contest, Georgia had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest seven times since its first entry in 2007. Its highest placing in the contest, to this point, has been ninth place, which the nation achieved on two occasions: in 2010 with the song "Shine" performed by Sofia Nizharadze and in 2011 with the song "One More Day" performed by Eldrine. The nation briefly withdrew from the contest in 2009 after the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) rejected the Georgian entry, "We Don't Wanna Put In", for perceived political references to Vladimir Putin who was the Russian Prime Minister at the time. The withdrawal and fallout was tied to tense relations between Georgia and then host country Russia, which stemmed from the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. Georgia has, to thipoint, failed to qualify to the final on only two occasions, which includes their 2014 entry "Three Minutes to Earth" performed by The Shin and Mariko.

Georgian broadcaster GPB confirmed on 10 September 2014 that Georgia would participate in the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest. GPB has utilized both internal selections and national finals to select the Georgian entry in the past. In 2013 and 2014, the broadcaster opted to select the entry through an internal selection. On 3 December 2014, GPB confirmed that a national final would be organised to select the 2015 Georgian entry; the last time Georgia's entry was selected through a national final was in 2012.

National final

GPB organized a national final in order to select the Georgian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2015. The competition took place on 14 January 2015 at 14:00 CET in Tbilisi as part of the programme Communicatori. The winner was decided upon by the 50/50 combination of the votes of an international jury panel and public televoting.

A submission period for interested artists and composers to submit their entries was opened on 3 December 2014 and closed on 20 December 2014. An expert commission selected five candidates from the received submissions to compete in the national final, which were revealed on 23 December 2014. The acts and their songs were presented on 31 December 2014 during the GPB's programme Communicatori. The public had two weeks to cast their vote from 1 January 2015 until 14 January 2015.

Nina Sublatti was the winner of the competition with the song "Warrior" after scoring the highest both with the international jury and the public televoting. The international jury consisted of Eurovision Song Contest 2013 winner Emmelie de Forest, Eugen Eliu, Thomas G:son, Marco Brey and Ralf Reinink.

Preparation

Following Sublatti's win at the Georgian national final, the Georgian broadcaster announced that Sublatti would work with Swedish composer Thomas G:son in order to revamp and produce the final Eurovision version of "Warrior". It was also announced that Swedish choreographer and director Sacha Jean-Baptiste would be part of Nina's team. Between 28 February 2015 and 1 March 2015, Sublatti filmed the music video for "Warrior", which was directed and produced by David Gogokhia and Studio BigCAKE. The video featured Sublatti and five other females (Nina Potskhishvili, Mariam Sanogo, Keta Gavasheli, Lina Tsiklauri and Dea Aptsiauri) dressed in warrior-like outfits created by Georgian designer Lasha Jokhadze. The video and revamped version of "Warrior" were released on 11 March.

At Eurovision

According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "Big 5" (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) are required to qualify from one of two semi-finals in order to compete for the final; the top ten countries from each semi-final progress to the final. In the 2015 contest, Australia also competed directly in the final as an invited guest nation. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) split up the competing countries into five different pots based on voting patterns from previous contests, with countries with favourable voting histories put into the same pot. On 26 January 2015, a special allocation draw was held which placed each country into one of the two semi-finals, as well as which half of the show they would perform in. Georgia was placed into the first semi-final, to be held on 19 May 2015, and was scheduled to perform in the second half of the show.

Once all the competing songs for the 2015 contest had been released, the running order for the semi-finals was decided by the shows' producers rather than through another draw, so that similar songs were not placed next to each other. Georgia was set to perform last in position 16, following the entry from Romania.

Both the semi-finals and the final were broadcast in Georgia on GPB First Channel with commentary by Lado Tatishvili and Tamuna Museridze. The Georgian spokesperson, who announced the Georgian votes during the final, was Natia Bunturi.

Semi-final

Nina Sublatti took part in technical rehearsals on 12 and 15 May, followed by dress rehearsals on 18 and 19 May. This included the jury final where professional juries of each country, responsible for 50 percent of each country's vote, watched and voted on the competing entries.

The stage show featured Nina Sublatti in a black costume with leather boots, a crown and traditional jewellery. The staging for the performance focused on dark colours with the background LED screens transitioning through images of dark clouds, lightning, large white wings and eyes filled with tears. The stage designer of the Georgian performance, Sacha Jean-Baptiste, stated: "Our goal was to show the song, which has a very generic message about strong women and feminism, with a very personal stage performance by Nina." Sublatti was the only performer visible during the performance, however, she was joined by two backing vocalists: Veronika Hammer and Rebecca Kollau-Freidinger.

At the end of the show, Georgia was announced as having finished in the top ten and subsequently qualifying for the grand final. It was later revealed that Georgia placed fourth in the semi-final, receiving a total of 98 points.

Final

Shortly after the first semi-final, a winner's press conference was held for the ten qualifying countries. As part of this press conference, the qualifying artists took part in a draw to determine which half of the grand final they would subsequently participate in. This draw was done in the order the countries were announced during the semi-final. Georgia was drawn to compete in the second half. Following this draw, the shows' producers decided upon the running order of the final, as they had done for the semi-finals. Georgia was subsequently placed to perform in position 23, following the entry from Hungary and before the entry from Azerbaijan.

Nina once again took part in dress rehearsals on 22 and 23 May before the final, including the jury final where the professional juries cast their final votes before the live show. Sublatti performed a repeat of her semi-final performance during the final on 23 May. At the conclusion of the voting, Georgia finished in eleventh place with 51 points.

Voting

Voting during the three shows consisted of 50 percent public televoting and 50 percent from a jury deliberation. The jury consisted of five music industry professionals who were citizens of the country they represent, with their names published before the contest to ensure transparency. This jury was asked to judge each contestant based on: vocal capacity; the stage performance; the song's composition and originality; and the overall impression by the act. In addition, no member of a national jury could be related in any way to any of the competing acts in such a way that they cannot vote impartially and independently. The individual rankings of each jury member were released shortly after the grand final.

Following the release of the full split voting by the EBU after the conclusion of the competition, it was revealed that Georgia had placed thirteenth with the public televote and tenth with the jury vote in the final. In the public vote, Georgia scored 52 points, while with the jury vote, Georgia scored 62 points. In the first semi-final, Georgia placed fourth with the public televote with 96 points and third with the jury vote, scoring 90 points.

Below is a breakdown of points awarded to Georgia and awarded by Georgia in the first semi-final and grand final of the contest, and the breakdown of the jury voting and televoting conducted during the two shows:

Split voting results

The following five members comprised the Georgian jury: