ESC 2020 or no ESC 2020 – it’s time to find out the #esc chat’s favourite from the entries that would have competed in Rotterdam in May!

We were already going to do a significantly scaled-back version of our ChatVote this year because of changes in our personal situations, but the cancellation of the 2020 contest means that there’s an understandable lack of motivation to make a big deal out of our annual event. Nevertheless, we know a lot of you want it to happen in some form, and we agree it’s important and only fair to add a 2020 winner to the ChatVote history rather than leaving it blank. So this is how the streamlined ChatVote 2020 will work:

On Tuesday 21 April at 20:45 CET, we’ll meet in the #esc chat to join in with the ESC Nation live viewing of the semi-final 1 entries, then we’ll vote for and announce our own ten qualifiers right there in the chat.

On Thursday 23 April at 20:45 CET, we’ll repeat the formula, watching the semi-final 2 entries together then voting for and announcing the chat’s ten qualifiers. We’ll also watch the six automatic finalists, so that all 26 songs have had a viewing in the chat.

We’ll then immediately open the e-mail lines for you to vote on the ChatVote 2020 final. We’ll need your votes by the end of Saturday night already – but don’t worry, there’ll be lots of reminders since it’s a shorter voting period than usual.

We’ll then reveal the results of the final in the chat on Sunday 26 April – exact time tbc, but probably at 20:00 CET ahead of whatever ESC Nation’s live viewing is that evening.

This will be a much more scaled-back version of the results than you’re used to: no jury-by-jury vote presentation with live scoreboard, no separate “televote” to add in at the end, just a simple reveal of the final standings. Even in this simplified format, however, we’ll try and integrate a bit of interaction – for example, by asking each of the chatters in attendance to tell us who got their 12 points as a little indicator of which countries might do well when we announce the final results.

We hope this is a satisfactory solution, giving us all a reason to gather in the chat and vote on the 2020 songs while also acknowledging that this sadly isn’t a normal year in the ESC world. Nevertheless, all we can do is make the best of things – and so we look forward to welcoming you to #esc and crowning our ChatVote winner!