It’s that time of year again – and it’s an anniversary celebration, too! For the 10th time, #esc and esc-chat.com proudly present one of our favourite traditions: the ChatVote.

In the run-up to every Eurovision Song Contest, the regular members of the #esc chatroom gather to vote and crown their favourite song from that year’s contest. Last year, Margaret Berger recorded a comfortable if not runaway victory before going on to finish 4th at the contest itself in Malmö. Eventual ESC winner Emmelie de Forest finished second in our vote, but we did at least get one notable result “right”: Ireland came last in our final too! You can check out the previous scoreboards from the past decade of the ChatVote right here.

Like last year, ChatVote 2014 will include semi-finals. These are now open for voting. Please note that, at this stage of proceedings, we are not yet asking for your ESC-style (1-12) votes: we simply want to know your ten favourites from each semi-final, in no particular order. These will then be combined to find the ten qualifiers from semi 1 and semi 2 respectively.

Please send a list of your ten favourites from each semi-final to vote@esc-chat.com by no later than 23:59 CET on Saturday 19 April, including your regular chat nickname so that we know who you are!

A brief revelation show for the semi-final qualifiers will be held in the chat at 21:00 CET on Sunday 20 April – we’d love to see you there, but if you can’t make it, the results will (of course) be published here on the website straight afterwards. The lines will then reopen for your final votes – but more details about that when the time comes.

The most important thing to note is that the ChatVote 2014 final will take place at 21:00 CET on Sunday 27 April, when – like every year – you will have the opportunity to give your votes live in the #esc chat and watch all the points roll in on our live scoreboard!

Following its successful introduction last year, we will again be watching the semi-finals and “our” final together in the chat. As such, we’ll be holding preview nights for the semi-finals this coming Tuesday and Thursday and for the final on Saturday 26 April. Nothing formal – just join #esc on those nights if you feel like having a bit of fun while watching and chatting about the 2014 ESC videos in their running order!

All the dates and times for ChatVote 2014 can be seen in the calendar below. Any questions can be sent to vote@esc-chat.com – or just bug MartinF or FelixK if you see them in the chatroom.

We look forward to your participation!
You are also welcome to join the event on Facebook.

ChatVote 2014: Calendar