Albania has won the 14th annual edition of ChatVote, the traditional event held by escgo! and the #esc chatroom to find our favourite song ahead of each year’s Eurovision Song Contest!

In the 2018 edition, “Mall” by Eugent Bushpepa received a total of 412 points, ahead of AWS from Hungary in second place (342 points) and Sennek from Belgium in third place (181 points). Meanwhile, San Marino propped up the table, receiving 25 points in last place.

Repeating the new ChatVote concept we introduced two years ago, 50% of the total score was determined by “juries” – regular chatters who gave their votes in ESC-style (12-10-8…) – and 50% by “televoting”, which took the form of a fast-paced poll that was held live in the chat at the start of the grand final, with everyone attending the event welcome to participate and submit as many votes as possible in the five-minute voting window.

This year’s big fan favourite, Israel, narrowly won our jury vote but with only a handful of top marks, so it was perhaps no surprise to see it fail to perform quite as well in the televote – but there was shock in the chat as it was left behind completely. Perhaps everyone expected someone else would vote for it? Meanwhile, Albania (which had finished a close second in the jury vote anyway) and Hungary benefited from huge support from the chatters in attendance on the night.

The televote system allows people to either spread their votes around several entries or concentrate their votes on their one big favourite, and unlike in previous years, it seems the latter is very much what happened tonight. In any case, the live-streamed scoreboard accompanying the televoting reveal was a fitting highlight to an exciting night in the chat – and we’d like to say thanks to everyone who attended and took part throughout the various events of ChatVote 2018.

You can see the final scoreboard here:

We can now also publish the full results of our semi-finals, in which voters were asked to nominate their ten favourite songs in each semi in two live polls after we had previewed the entries in the #esc chat. This gave the following results:

Semi 1:
1. Israel and Greece, 3. Albania, Czech Republic, Austria and Armenia, 7. Lithuania, 8. Belgium, Bulgaria and Macedonia || 11. Cyprus, 12. Estonia, Finland and Ireland, 15. Azerbaijan, 16. Belarus, 17. Iceland and Switzerland, 19. Croatia.

Semi 2:
1. Australia, 2. Romania, 3. Denmark and Sweden, 5. Montenegro, 6. Moldova and Georgia, 8. Hungary, 9. Ukraine and San Marino || 11. Norway, Latvia and Slovenia, 14. Netherlands and Malta, 16. Serbia, 17. Poland, 18. Russia.

For the record, Australia was the only song to receive a vote from every single person who voted in the respective semi-final. Meanwhile, unlike last year when Lithuania’s Fusedmarc were left empty-handed, every single song received a vote from at least one of our chatters. Hurrah!

So that’s all until 2019 – although there is the small matter of the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest for us to enjoy first. And while the #esc ChatVote is very much a preference poll, it can be fun to look back and see how our taste has corresponded to Europe’s over the years. As the ChatVote history shows, Albania’s victory may not necessarily be an omen of success in Lisbon next month, but there is a possibility we might have got it “right” – just ask Lena, Loreen, or indeed last year’s ChatVote winner Salvador Sobral! In reality, though, qualification for the ESC final will already be a victory for Albania, and on behalf of our chatters we wish Eugent Bushpepa all the best with that.

And now, enjoy our winning song one more time!