Slovenia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2016

Background

Prior to the 2016 Contest, Slovenia had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest twenty-one times since its first entry in 1993. Slovenia's highest placing in the contest, to this point, has been seventh place, which the nation achieved on two occasions: in 1995 with the song "Prisluhni mi" performed by Darja Švajger and in 2001 with the song "Energy" performed by Nuša Derenda. The country's only other top ten result was achieved in 1997 when Tanja Ribič performing "Zbudi se" placed tenth. Since the introduction of semi-finals to the format of the contest in 2004, Slovenia had thus far only managed to qualify to the final on four occasions. In 2015, "Here for You" performed by the duo Maraaya qualified to the final and placed fourteenth.

The Slovenian national broadcaster, Radiotelevizija Slovenija (RTV Slovenija), broadcasts the event within Slovenia and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. RTV Slovenija confirmed Slovenia's participation in the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest on 14 September 2015. The Slovenian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest has traditionally been selected through a national final entitled Evrovizijska Melodija (EMA), which has been produced with variable formats. To this point, the broadcaster has only foregone the use of this national final in 2013 when the Slovenian entry was internally selected. For 2016, the broadcaster opted to organise EMA 2016 to select the Slovenian entry.

EMA 2016

EMA 2016 was the 20th edition of the Slovenian national final format Evrovizijska Melodija (EMA). The competition was used by RTV Slovenija to select Slovenia's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2016. The 2016 edition of EMA was part of RTV Slovenija's new music festival Dnevi Slovenske Zabavne Glasbe (DSZG), which consisted of three evenings: pop-rock competition, popevka competition and EMA 2016. The project aimed to aid in the development of Slovenian music. The competition was broadcast on TV SLO1, Radio Val 202, Radio Koper, Radio Maribor and online via the broadcaster's RTV 4D platform.

Format

Ten songs competed in a televised show where the winner was selected over two rounds of voting. In the first round, a three-member expert jury selected two finalists out of the ten competing songs to proceed to a superfinal. Each member of the expert jury assigned a score of 1 (lowest score) to 5 (highest score) to each song with the top two being determined by the songs that receive the highest overall scores when the jury votes are combined. Ties were broken by giving priority to the song(s) that achieved a higher number of top scores (5), which would be followed by each juror indicating their preferred song should a tie still have persisted. In the superfinal, public televoting exclusively determined the winner. In case of technical problems with the televote, the jury would have voted to determine the winner in a similar process as in the first round of the competition.

Competing entries

Artists and composers were able to submit their entries to the broadcaster between 19 November 2015 and 21 December 2015. 61 entries were received by the broadcaster during the submission period. An expert committee consisting of Alenka Godec (singer), Gaber Radojevič (musician, composer and music producer), Aleksander Radić (Head of the Slovenian delegation at the Eurovision Song Contest) and Jernej Vene (music editor for Radio Val 202) selected ten artists and songs for the competition from the received submissions. The competing artists were announced on 5 January 2016. Among the competing artists are former Slovenian Eurovision contestants Regina who represented Slovenia in 1996 and Nuša Derenda who represented Slovenia in 2001.

Final

EMA 2016 took place on 27 February 2016 at the RTV Slovenija Studio 1 in Ljubljana, hosted by Klemen Slakonja. In addition to the performances of the competing entries, 2015 Slovenian Eurovision entrants Maraaya and 2015 Slovenian Junior Eurovision entrant Lina Kuduzović performed as guests. An online backstage broadcast at RTV Slovenija's official website also occurred concurrently with the competition, which was hosted by Nejc Šmit. The winner was selected over two rounds of voting. In the first round, a three-member jury panel select two entries to proceed to the second round: "Blue and Red" performed by ManuElla and "Črno Bel" performed by Raiven. The jury consisted of Raay (singer-songwriter, member of Maraaya), Darja Švajger (singer, vocal coach and 1995 and 1999 Slovenian Eurovision entrant) and Tomaž Mihelič–Marlenna (represented Slovenia in 2002 as part of Sestre). In the second round, a public vote selected "Blue and Red" performed by ManuElla as the winner.

Preparation

Following ManuElla's win at EMA 2016, the singer revealed that "Blue and Red" would likely undergo minor changes to produce the final Eurovision Song Contest version of the song. On 4 April, the new version of "Blue and Red" was released to the public. In late April, a mobile app was launched that allowed users to access exclusive content and follow ManuElla's preparations for the contest. On 30 April, ManuElla released the official music video for "Blue and Red", which was directed by Darko Drinovac.

Promotion

ManuElla made several appearances across Europe to specifically promote "Blue and Red" as the Slovenian Eurovision entry. On 9 April, ManuElla performed during the Eurovision in Concert event which was held at the Melkweg venue in Amsterdam, Netherlands and hosted by Cornald Maas and Hera Björk. Between 11 and 13 April, ManuElla took part in promotional activities in Tel Aviv, Israel and performed during the Israel Calling event held at the Ha'teatron venue.

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. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) split up the competing countries into six different pots based on voting patterns from previous contests, with countries with favourable voting histories put into the same pot. On 25 January 2016, 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. Slovenia was placed into the second semi-final, to be held on 12 May 2016, and was scheduled to perform in the second half of the show.

Once all the competing songs for the 2016 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. Originally, Slovenia was set to perform in position 11, following the entry from Australia and before the entry from Romania. However, following Romania's disqualification from the contest on 22 April and subsequent removal from the running order of the second semi-final, Slovenia's performing position remained at 11 and the nation would now perform before the entry from Bulgaria.

In Slovenia, the semi-finals were televised on RTV SLO2 and the final was televised on RTV SLO1 with commentary by Andrej Hofer. The contest was also broadcast via radio with the second semi-final and final airing on Radio Val 202 and all three shows airing on Radio Maribor. The Slovenian spokesperson, who announced the top 12-point score awarded by the Slovenian jury during the final, was Marjetka Vovk, who represented Slovenia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 as part of Maraaya.

Semi-final

ManuElla took in technical rehearsals on 5 and 7 May, followed by dress rehearsals on 11 and 12 May. This included the jury show on 11 May where the professional juries of each country watched and voted on the competing entries.

The Slovenian performance featured ManuElla performing in a long white dress, joined by an acrobat on stage who performed spins on a pole. The stage colours were blue and red and the LED screens displayed images of ManuElla's face miming the lyrics of the song. The performance also featured the use of a wind machine and fountain pyrotechnic effects. The Slovenian performance was choreographed by Anže Škrube. ManuElla was joined by four off-stage backing vocalists: Karin Zemljič, Lea Sirk, Mitja Bobič and the co-composer of "Blue and Red" Marjan Hvala. The acrobat featured during the performance was Jannik Baltzer Hattel from the Danish acrobatic trio No Limits.

At the end of the show, Slovenia was not announced among the top 10 entries in the second semi-final and therefore failed to qualify to compete in the final. It was later revealed that Slovenia placed fourteenth in the semi-final, receiving a total of 57 points: 8 points from the televoting and 49 points from the juries.

Voting

Voting during the three shows was conducted under a new system that involved each country now awarding two sets of points from 1-8, 10 and 12: one from their professional jury and the other from televoting. Each nation's jury consisted of five music industry professionals who are citizens of the country they represent, with their names published before the contest to ensure transparency. This jury judged each entry 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 was permitted to 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 as well as the nation's televoting results were released shortly after the grand final.

Below is a breakdown of points awarded to Slovenia and awarded by Slovenia in the second 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 Slovenian jury: