When even one of the longest running national finals of the season is about to end, then you know the national final season is about to end as well.
“Eurovizijos” dainų konkurso nacionalinė atranka, or simply just “Eurovizijos”, is the name of the national final in Lithuania, which started all the way back at January after new year, and first now is about to end.
Background
Many countries still suffer economically, and simply to decide on their artist either internally, or through a simply short national selection, but Lithuania will be remembered in the year 2016, for the longest running national selection.
The start of the selection was back in October 2015, when submission was opened by the national broadcaster, LRT. Submissions were opened until the 1st of December 2015. On the 21st of December, the 28 acts that would compete in the national final was announced. However, the show suffered from a few amount of withdrawals, yet they were instead replaced.
The original final was planned to be done on the 28th of February, but additionally, 2 more shows were added to the schedule, and the final was moved as well, to 2 weeks later.
Throughout the months of January and February, the 28 contestants were placed in 8 different shows, with a different amount of competitors being either eliminated, or advancing. Eventually, the 9th show was the semi-final, which took place 1 week before the final, which consisted of 8 competitors, with only 2 of them being eliminated, and ultimately leaving only 6 of the 28 total competitors in the grand final.
The Show
After all the weeks and shows, then Lithuania was ready to select their artist, who will represent them in Stockholm, Sweden. Only 6 of the 28 total acts made it through the national madness, and these 6 made it this far:
- Ruslanas Kirilkinas – “In My World”
- Ieva Zasimauskaitė – “Life(Not That Beautiful)”
- Aistė Pilvelytė – “You Bet”
- Erica Jennings – “Leading Me Home”
- Rūta Ščiogolevaitė – “United”
- Donny Montell – “I’ve Been Waiting For This Night”
The show was hosted by Andrius Rožickas and Gerūta Griniūtė, who guided the Lithuanian juries for all the shows, while the jury commented on all the performances. The Jury consisted of 7 members, one of the being Vaidas Baumila, who represented Lithuania last year, along with Monika and the song “This Time”. The televote started at the beginning of the show.
The Results
The results of the national final, was decided by 50% jury vote, and 50% Televote. The jury would announce their combined points, while the televote winner, will get the maximum amount of points, runner-up getting the second highest amount and so on. Maximum amount of points that could be obtained, would then be 24 points, if both Jury and Televote agreed on the winner.
Before the winner was announced, a small montage of the Europeans competitors were shown, and also clips from 2015 when Monika & Vaida represented the country.
- Donny Montell – 24 points
- Erica Jennings – 20 points
- Ruta Sciogolevaite – 16 points
- Ieva Zasimauskaite – 13 points
- Aistė Pilvelytė – 13 points
- Ruslanas Kirilkinas – 10 points
Donny Montell managed to score a perfect score, gaining maximum points from both Jury & Televote, and will now represent his country for a second time with the song “I’ve Been Waiting For This Night“, he first represented Lithuania back in 2012 with the song “Love Is Blind”, which gave Lithuania their 3rd best placings to date, a 14th place in Baku.
Lithuania will compete in the first half of second semi-final, that will take place in Stockholm on the 12 of May 2016.
