Eurovision Song Contest Portugal 2018

As Salvador Sobral won the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 in Ukraine with the song called Amar Pelos Dois, Eurovision Song Contest 2018 took place in Lisbon, Portugal. This was the first time Portugal hosted the competition. Total of 43 countries participated. The first Semi-Final was held on May 8th and the second Semi-Final was held on May 10th.The winner was selected at the Grand Final on May 12th. The winner of the competition was Netta from Israel with a song called TOY. The song gained a total of 529 points and it was the third Eurovision Song Contest victory for Israel.

On 27th of April 2018, the EBU announced changes to the jury voting system that applied to the 2018 contest. Each ranking position between first and last would be assigned a predefined value, starting with the value of 12 for a first rank and decreasing exponentially for lower ranks. The sum of these scores for all twenty-six songs from the five jury members then create the national jury result for each participating country. The new exponential weight model gives more weight to higher-ranked songs and gives less impact for an individual jury member’s lower rank in the final results.

There was also an unfortunate incident at the Grand Final when an activist ran to the stage during the United Kingdom’s performance. The activist grabbed the microphone from the performer SuRie and started to shout claims against UK media. SuRie was able to complete her performance and EBU offered the opportunity to perform again, but she declined.