Welcome to the official rules of Eurovision Prediction 2018! We’re so glad that you are interested in participating. Therefore, to make things as easy as possible, below you can find out exactly what the game entails. The game is extremely easy to play and will take just take up a few minutes of your time here and there… unless you are an indecisive predictor of course! With a prize up for grabs for our Eurovision Prediction 2018 winner, what are you waiting for?
Overview
In case you are one of those people that just want to get stuck in, have a read of our quick rules summary below. For full details of how the game works, read on below!
1. When each prediction round begins, you will be notified via our official Eurovision Prediction 2018 Facebook page, our official Eurovision Prediction 2018 Twitter page and here on the ESCXTRA website.
2. All you need to do is select which entry you think will win each national final via the Google form we provide.
3. The player with the most points at the end of the 2018 national final season will become our champion. They will win a selection of items chosen by our editors at the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon.
How to play
Eurovision Prediction 2018 will consist of several rounds, where the aim is for you to predict which entry will win each country’s national final. Each round will consist of one or more national finals for you to predict. The number of predictions you will need to make in each round will depend on the dates on which the national finals fall.
You will be notified when a round begins and ends
When each round begins, we will notify you via a brief article that will be posted on our official Eurovision Prediction 2018 Facebook page, our official Eurovision Prediction 2018 Twitter page and here on the ESCXTRA website. We will also share these notifications on our official ESCXTRA Facebook page and Twitter page, so be sure to like and follow them too!
Inside this article will be a Google form. Here, you can send us your predictions. In addition, there will be a deadline for predictions to be submitted. Generally, you will be able to send your predictions for each round up until the earliest national final of the round is scheduled to begin airing. If the round contains a national final outside the typical Friday to Sunday period, special instructions may be given.
Predictions are submitted via a simple Google form
On the Google form, you will be asked to submit your name, Twitter profile and nationality. However, you will be able to maintain a significant level of anonymity if you so desire! You will then be asked to select which entry you think will win each national final using a series of drop-down menus. And that’s it!
You will require a Google Account to register your votes. The email address you use to login to the form and to submit your votes will not be retained by ESCXTRA following the end of the competition. Your email address will only be used to provide you with a notification if you are the winning entrant at the end of the competition. Your email will not be sold to any third-parties and will be kept securely within the Google Forms system by Google itself.
You can edit your predictions as you wish up until the deadline. Just make sure to supply us with the same personal details in your submission. But what happens next? Read on below!
Our scoring system
After all of the national finals in the round have taken place and selected their winners, it is time to award the points! We aim to turn the results around for you within 24 hours of the latest national final of the round coming to an end. However, please be patient if there are a lot of you guys playing… which we hope there will be!
A dynamic scoring system
We calculate your score depending on how close your predicted winners for each national final come to taking the victory. Take Melodifestivalen 2017 for example. If you predicted Robin Bengtsson to win, you would receive the full 12 points on offer. 12 points were available as there were 12 entries in the national final. If you predicted 2nd placed Nano to win you would receive 11 points and so on. Therefore, if you predicted hot favourite Wiktoria, you would be awarded 7 points for her 6th place finish.
In the instance of a national final only declaring the winner, such as in Eurovision: You Decide, the points on offer will be all or nothing. For example, if you predicted Lucie Jones you would take the full 6 points on offer. However, if you predicted any of the other five finalists, you would receive the minimum of 1 point. If a national final announces just a selection of exact placings, then a hybrid of these two scoring systems will be used.
We will determine which of the two scoring systems will be used depending on the results that are announced during the show. Sometimes a national final chooses to reveal full results afterwards via the internet, or other outlets, after only announcing the winner during the show. In such cases, we will not include these details results in our scoring.
Round-by-round leaderboard updates
If you do not submit a prediction for a national final then you will receive zero points. This scoring process will take place for each national final. At the end of each round, the points will be added up and posted on our official Eurovision Prediction 2018 Facebook page, our official Eurovision Prediction 2018 Twitter page and here on the ESCXTRA website. The player that accumulates the most points after all the rounds have taken place will be crowned the winner of Eurovision Prediction 2018!
The prize
Of course, becoming the winner of Eurovision Prediction 2018 is a massive prize in itself! What? That isn’t enough? Well, luckily for you, we will be awarding the winner a package of promotional items from the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest! These items will be at the discretion of our editors on the ground in Lisbon and the items made available to us by the delegations at the contest. Quite a unique prize right?
Albania is first up!
Tell all your friends and get ready to predict! The first round will take place very shortly as Festivali i Këngës will select Albania’s representative for Lisbon. On Sunday, predictions for this first round will open. So stay tuned!
Happy predicting!
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