It’s been a seriously busy few days for hardcore fans of the Eurovision Song Contest, with two evenings of stream-juggling and countless preselection shows ultimately producing no fewer than seven new entries for the 2018 competition. In case you missed anything – or you just want to revisit some of the highlights – we hereby offer a brief round-up of the weekend’s winners for your enjoyment!

Ukraine kicked us off on Saturday night, as the Vidbir selection process concluded following two semi-finals. Last year, Tayanna was the jury’s favourite but ultimately lost out to a song that was more popular with the public. This year… well, you can guess. “Lelya” by Tayanna may have been preferred by the professionals, but “Under The Ladder” by Mélovin gathered almost twice as many televotes as any other entry and will represent Ukraine in Lisbon in May.

Staying in the EET time zone, Moldova was another early starter on Saturday. As any fan will tell you, there’s no such thing as a foregone conclusion when it comes to Eurovision national finals, but this year’s Moldovan preselection saw a runaway victory for the DoReDos trio and their song “My Lucky Day” as expected. To say they dominated proceedings would be an understatement – they scored ten times as many televotes as their nearest challenger.

Slovenia is historically one of those countries where the public vote is frequently overturned by the juries, and 2018 was no exception. Having been “robbed” last year, the duo BQL won the televote as expected, but the damage had already been done – having captured a remarkably clear victory with the juries, Lea Sirk and her song “Hvala, ne!” (“Thank you, no!”) will get to defend the Slovenian colours in Lisbon later this year. We understand it’ll probably be translated into English in the meantime.

In Hungary, A Dal has established itself as one of the higher-quality selection processes in recent years, showcasing a real cross-section of the Hungarian music scene and a healthy mix of genres. The latter point was proven on Saturday night, as screamo metal band AWS won the public vote and will represent their nation in Lisbon with the song “Viszlát nyár” (“Goodbye, Summer”). Hungary have a perfect qualification record this decade, and it’ll be fascinating to see whether one of the most extreme and challenging entries to ever reach the ESC stage will win them another appearance in the grand final.

Latvia has attracted a lot of fan goodwill in recent years with its Sunday night Supernova shows and the antics of a certain Rīgas Bebrs. Unfortunately, the decision to move to Saturdays has seen this year’s Latvian selection process fall through the gaps somewhat, and it felt a bit like the poor relation on this particular “Super Saturday” too. Lack of attention from abroad notwithstanding, Latvian-Brazilian singer-songwriter Laura Rizzotto made a big impression on the local jurors and televoters and will represent the beaver nation in Lisbon with her own composition, “Funny Girl”.

And so to Sunday. The national final in Armenia was expected to be a battle of the fan favourites, but Asmik Shiroyan disappointed with a shouty and off-key performance of “You And I”. Fears that one of the weirder entries could take the victory instead (Kamil’s “straight drag” show or Mger Armenia with his friends in high places, say) were ultimately dispelled as the other fan fave, “Qami” (“Wind”) by Sevak Khanagyan, won the public and jury vote alike. It remains to be seen whether the song will remain in Armenian at ESC, but – if you’ll forgive us a bit of editorialising here – we certainly hope so.

There was a Portuguese semi-final late last night (and very lovely it was too), but in terms of actual songs chosen for ESC 2018, the weekend concluded with the final in Romania. The culmination of an enjoyable six-week process involving semi-finals across the country (including in a salt mine), it was widely expected that Feli’s popularity would help her song “Bună de iubit” – translated into English as “Royalty” for last night’s show – to win the televote-only final comfortably. Things turned out differently. Tween-friendly duo Alexia & Matei took an early lead in the televoting standings and initially looked to be unassailable. Over the course of the one-hour voting period, however, they were gradually reeled in and ultimately overtaken by The Humans, who will fly the Romanian flag in Lisbon with their song “Goodbye”.

And that’s that! You can see what the weekend selections have done to our SongHunt master list here and vote for your favourites in Heat 5, which is now open for votes.

And don’t forget to join us in the chat this coming Saturday as we watch and vote on the selections in Finland, San Marino, Estonia, Iceland and Poland, not to mention the drama of the Andra Chansen show in Sweden. See you there!