[LMBTO] Eurovision 2018 Finally Signed Off - OGAE SCC 2018 Results...

As is traditional for each Eurovision season, at least as far as I'm concerned, the final act is hearing the results of the OGAE Second Chance Contest.  That happened on 13th October, although the actual show itself was the weekend before (the 5th, when I was enjoying myself in Leeds at Eurobash).  Now you will remember how I scored the 27 entries in my previous SCC article - here's a recap of my top ten:


Up to the day when the show was broadcast, I had no idea how in synch with my fellow UK jurors I would be or even with those across Europe.  As I said originally, as long as one of my top nine won then I would be happy-ish, although if "Lo Malo" or "Out Of The Twilight" got that top spot, I would then have been deliriously happy!  OGAE Sweden, the hosts this year, teased us in the run up to the big show:



And then on that Saturday, the YouTube video was released - it is well worth a watch if you haven't looked at it yet:



Our hosts were pleasing to the eye and entertaining, although trying to be the next 'Petra and Måns' was always going to lead to them falling short.  Maybe sticking to a straightforward 'present the show and the marks' show might have made this an absolutely excellent experience, rather than just a great one:
It was a slick show and did add something extra to previous Contest's videos I have seen, although the history of the Contest didn't really work due to it being played for laughs and having a quiz in the show was a distraction.  Having three special guests, including last year's winner Mariette, there to perform was a big bonus too - it makes it difficult for whoever presents the 2019 Contest!  Will this year's winner be at the OGAE SCC 2019?
Onto the show itself and there were a record number of entries - 27 in all.  Just a quick reminder - the nations that were participating acted as the 'juries', giving their scores in the traditional Eurovision way of 1-12, whereas the guest juries acted as 'televoters', their scores all being brought together and supplied in points depending on the percentage of the overall total score each nation got.
To be frank with you, this was the only time that Asanda was going to head the scoreboard but I was surprised by how well the UK did this year - 9th with the 'juries' but being dropped down to 13th with the 'televote'.  That is amazing given that I rated "Legends" down in 22nd, based on the live performance.  As for the actual voting, I'm not going to break it down jury by jury but I will flag up the highlights - Poland got the nod to start the voting off, given that they were last year's hosts:
Keep those four nations at the top in mind as we proceed - they weren't far off the final positions!  Next picture shows off the UK's high point of the evening - a 12 from Spain:
5th place and only four points off the lead - that's as good as it got for my entry.  Once we got halfway through the jury votes, the nations were getting stretched out and potentially three songs were starting to leave the others behind:
Emmy, Annalisa and Saara were being awarded high marks from every jury - not impossible for Norway, Spain or Sweden to pick it back up but as we got to the end of the jury vote, Italy had pulled away from the rest with a commanding lead:
How had they done that?  Have a look at the number of maximum 12s awarded:


Just an aside at this point, it was nice to see Denmark and Norway have their artists read out their nations marks (Albin Fredy and Rebecca) and it was a complete shock to see Benjamin Ingrosso read out the Swedish 12 points!
It seemed at this stage that baring a total switchabout by the 'televoters', Italy were on for their fourth win in the OGAE SCC.  Unlike Eurovision itself, you haven't got a professional panel / public split but just another set of OGAE fans so in the end, it wasn't a massive surprise to see this final result:
I did say that any of my top nine could win and that would be fine with me - I was a bit surprised that Spain weren't closer to the top of the leaderboard and that Sara de Blue for ROW was so low down but those are my personal preferences coming out there.  Compare my top ten to the final result and also to my fellow UK jurors:
Apart from Belarus getting our one point and "Domino" being a lot more popular than I thought it would be, my preferences fitted in quite well.  So we had an Italian victory for the second time in four years and looking at my scoring, Annalisa was only two points behind my favourite of Ana Guerra and Aitana (17/20 instead of 19/20) so the difference was insignificant.
Just to show that this lady could perform this perfectly live every time, here is one of her Sanremo shows earlier in the process:

Maybe Annalisa will give Sanremo another go in 2019 - whatever happens, her winning the Second Chance Contest has tied up the last of the 2018 season loose ends quite nicely...