On Sunday night, the 2016 edition of the escgo! Chat Awards were held in our #esc chatroom.

This fun annual event attracted a healthy audience of chatters, all of whom got the opportunity to vote on the nominees in various categories as we honoured our favourites from the 2016 ESC season.

Nine of the Chat Awards were decided by live polls based on the nominations submitted by regular chatters, and the winners were as follows:

• Best official preview video for an ESC 2016 song: Czech Republic (“I Stand”)
  [also nominated: Georgia, Armenia, Israel]
• Best outfit worn at ESC 2016: Australia (Dami Im)
  [also nominated: Armenia, Ukraine, Norway]
• Best staging at ESC 2016: Ukraine (“1944”)
  [also nominated: Armenia, Belgium, Austria]
• Best solo artist at ESC 2016: Macedonia (Kaliopi)
  [also nominated: Ukraine, Armenia, Latvia]
• Best band or other non-solo artist at ESC 2016: Georgia (Nika Kocharov & Young Georgian Lolitaz)
  [also nominated: United Kingdom, Bosnia & Herzegovina]
• Best song at ESC 2016: Bulgaria (“If Love Was A Crime”)
  [also nominated: Australia, Belgium, Italy, Croatia]
• Best national final of the 2016 season: Ukraine
  [also nominated: Belgium, United Kingdom, Estonia, Albania, Sweden, Norway, Spain]
• Hottest entrant in a national final or at ESC in 2016: Serhat
  [also nominated: Sergey Lazarev, Freddie (Hungary), Joe (UK), Samir (Melodifestivalen), Douwe Bob]
• #esc cult of the year: Susie Power – “Popsicle”
  [also nominated: “We Wanna Peace”, Rykka]

We also gave out the Lifetime Achievement Award, chosen by the escgo! editors, to an ESC legend who left us since last year’s Chat Awards. This went to ESC 1998 host and long-time UK commentator Sir Terry Wogan, about whom our editor Martin already shared his memories in an escgo! article earlier this year.

The evening finished with the results of the grand final of SongHunt 2016 (view final results here). Following an extensive process involving heats, quarter-finals, semi-finals and the grand final, the winner – which duly received our “Song Of The Year” award – was “Helpless” by The Hardkiss.

Our big thanks to everybody who nominated and attended on the night to cast their votes. We’re already looking forward to seeing which contenders for the 2017 Chat Awards emerge when the on-season begins very soon!