The Voice of Europe

The The Voice of Europe, often shortened TVoE is a song contest on Youtube held among the members of the The Voice Broadcasting Union since April 2015 and is inspired by the Eurovision Song Contest. The current and official TVoE executive supervisor is Adrià Puigdemont.

Each country's head of delegation gets to select an entry for each edition either by internal or national selection. Then the countries get to vote for each show (semi-final or final) to determine the qualifiers and the winner of the edition.

So far, two different countries have won the competition and therefore hosted the contest. Apart from Sweden, who hosted due to being the organizer of the contest, United Kingdom have all been winners and hosts of the contest.

On 15th April 2015, Adrià, executive supervisor of the The Voice Broadcasting Union decided to re-open an international music contest, in that every full member of the VBU can take part by sending artists representing their countries with songs. It was called The Voice of Europe.

The first ever North Vision Song Contest started on 9th May 2015. It was held in the capital city of Sweden which also was the first ever country to host the North Vision Song Contest. 28 nations were taking part in TVoE 01 each submitting one entry to the contest. Each country awarded 12 points to their favourite, 10 points to their second favourite and then 8 points to 1 point for the rest. Each country is free to either hold a Televote only, a Jury Voting only or both at the same time which combined make up the voting they will submit. The voting procedure has not changed since then.

The United Kingdom was the first ever country to win the contest. The winner is traditionally set to be the host of the following North Vision edition.

Logo and theme
The logo is developed by both hosts of the contest and it's presened shortly before the start of the edition.

Slogans
Since the first edition already, slogans were used for the contest. In each edition, the host broadcaster was in charge to decide the slogan of the edition and based on it, develope the contest's theme and visual design.

Participation
Any full member of the VBU is allowed to send a song for the North Vision Song Contest. Countries that are not full members can apply for becoming one.

Each full member has got a certain broadcaster that is responsible for the choice of the artists and songs the country is sending for each edition. Thirty-three countries have participated at least once. These are listed here alongside the edition in which they made their debut:

Format
The contest's format was the same during the first editions; two semi-finals and a final were held. The top eitht scored countries from each semi-final advanced to the final.

Since the very first edition the winning country of each edition is automatically chosen to be the host of the next edition. As the host broadcaster, the heads of delegation can decide how and when they want to host the competition, present the logo, make a theme song and other things. However if a broadcaster cannot afford to host the competition, the runner-up will help out. The show would still be hosted in the winning country.

Rules
There are several rules of the contest in order to enter. Main rule of the contest is that the country has to officially join the VBU with a certain broadcaster before applying to enter the contest. Regarding the broadcaster, any broadcaster can be accepted by the NBU if it consists the qualifications of it. The head of delegation of the certain country must be at the position for at least three editions. If the head of delegation is not satisfied with the country, one can swap the countries with other users. This rule repeats then.

Entries
Entries can be either selected by a national selection or internally.

The selected song must be published after 2000. Covers or samples are not allowed to enter. Parodies are not allowed to enter either, unless they do not sample the original. Eurovision songs are not allowed. The selected entrant must be aged 16 at least on the day the song was officially published or leaked.

Musicians that have only roots from the country they get chosen for cannot be selected internally. They have to be selected in a national selection with at least 9 other native artists. The five micro states (Andorra, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and San Marino) are allowed to borrow from their bigger neighbors even without a National Selection.

National selections
The broadcaster has the opportunity to fully decide how his national selection will be held. The amount of the songs, artists and the format of the show can be chosen by the broadcaster. The only rule applied to the selection's entries is that the artists have to be native to the country. If a song competes in a national selection, it cannot appear in any national or internal selection after. These rules apply for every country.

Borrowing countries
As mentioned above, the micro states can borrow from their neighbour countries. The following list shows the countries that can borrow and the countries that they can borrow from.

Every edition


 * Andorra from Spain
 * Liechtenstein from Austria and Switzerland
 * Luxembourg from Belgium
 * Monaco from France
 * San Marino from Italy

Strikes and banning
The NBU has set several rules that in case they are broken by a country of the contest, the country receives a strike or is immediately banned depending on the rule that was broken. The broadcaster of the country gets one strike for not sending an entry or the votes on time or for cheating in the country's national selection. The broadcaster will receive three strikes for cheating on the voting in official North Vision events and for being extremely inactive in at least three consecutive editions. If a broadcaster gets three strikes, the country is suspended for one edition and can return to the contest with other broadcaster if needed.

Rehearsals and press conferences
Each country has two rehearsals before the contest. The rehearsals start with the semi-final countries nine days before the first semi-final. During the first two days, the rehersals for the first semi-final countries take place while during the next two days the rehearsals for the second semi-final countries take place. The second rehearsals for each country take place on the fifth and sixth days. On the seventh day, the big 5 countries have their first rehearsal taken. On the ninth day, the big 5 have their second rehearsal taken. Apart from the regular rehearsals, there are also three dress rehearsals for each show where the full show is rehearsed. The dress rehearsals for the semi-finals and the final take place in two days: twice on the day before the show (one in the afternoon and the other in the evening) and once on the day of the show. The third dress rehearsal, the one before the contest, is the show that is taken place for the jury, which means that the 50% of the result is decided before the live contest. The table below shows the schedule that is used for every edition with some adjustments made for each edition.

Voting
The voting system was since the first edition the same. Countries award a set of points from 1 to 8, then 10 and finally 12 to other songs in the competition — with the favourite song being awarded 12 points.

Since the first edition the voting has been presided over by the NBU scrutineer, who is responsible for ensuring that all points are allocated correctly and in turn.

Presentation of votes
Since the first edition, all the countries have been voting in the final–finalists or not. The order of the voting nations are often randomly. After the interval act is over, when all the points have been calculated, the presenter(s) of the show call upon each voting country in turn to invite them to announce the results of their vote. Often the opportunity is taken by each country to show their spokesperson standing in front of a backdrop which includes a famous place in that country. Since the first edition, the scoreboard has taken a different format. Firstly, the points 1–7 are shown together and the spokesperson continues with the high points, the top 3; 8, 10 and 12. The song which receives the 12 from the country is usually played along with a bar below.

Nul points and ties
Although it is almost impossible for a country to receive nul points, there has so far been one entry that received no points from any country.

There have been several ties during the contest. In case of a tie between two or more countries, the country that received points from the most countries wins the tie. However, if the countries received points from the same number of countries, the number of 12 points is counted and if they are still tied it goes on until the tie breaks.

Winners
The contest has so far two different winning countries. Most of the winners have so far been female artists.