It’s that time of year again – ChatVote 2017 is officially launched!

This will be the 13th edition of our traditional annual event, in which the #esc chatters decide which is their favourite entry in the forthcoming Eurovision Song Contest. Yes, it’s true – ChatVote is becoming a teenager! You can read all about the past events on our comprehensive history page.

For ChatVote 2017, we intend to repeat the innovations we successfully introduced last year. That means live voting in the chat for the two semi-finals, live streaming of the envelopes revealing the qualifiers, and a big final event including a fast-and-furious “televoting” poll and a live-streamed scoreboard for you to follow the jury votes and the decisive televoting revelation.

What’s the plan?
On Sunday 2 April and Monday 3 April, we will gather in #esc to watch each of the semi-finals (with the running order determined by the escgo! editors if the EBU hasn’t announced the official order yet). Everyone will then be able to vote for their ten qualifiers in a poll, after which the lucky qualifiers will be revealed in our live stream.

Once our qualifiers are known, the jury vote for the ChatVote grand final will be opened. As usual, chat regulars will be invited to submit their jury votes by e-mail, and there will be a preview event in the chat on Saturday 8 April to help anyone who needs one last reminder of the songs – again, with a producer-determined running order.

Like last year, the grand final on Sunday 9 April will be partially decided by “ESC-style” votes submitted in advance by e-mail (the “juries”, counting for 50% of the total vote), but the same amount of power will also go to the active chatters who attend the event. They will be the “televoters”, accounting for the remaining 50% of the vote in a live poll, the link to which will only be shared in the chat during the event. (And yes – if you vote in advance and attend the grand final in the chat, this means you can be a jury and a televoter!)

So what do I do now?
Simply come and attend our semi-finals if you can, and vote your favourites through to the grand final! As usual, the jury voting for the grand final will open after the second semi-final – full instructions will be published then, so no need to e-mail us anything yet. A mini-calendar with all the important dates and times can be found below for your convenience.

And please do add yourself to the Facebook events for semi 1, semi 2, the final preview and the grand final.

See you in the chat!

ChatVote 2017: Calendar