Globalvision Season 15

The 15th season of the Globalvision Song Contest that started on the 20th of February 2020, with the early country confirmations being announced already on the 15th. The first songs were revealed on the 25th with the other ones being released during the next few days. The final ceremony was held on the 18th of March.

Initially, 35 countries were meant to participate, but 3 of them didn't send their votes on time that leading to their disqualification. Only two countries debuted in this season, those were Belarus and Uzbekistan, brought by @Bellatrix and @DiamondKing respectively. Malta was also meant to debut, despìte its controversy, but it ended among the disqualified countries.

There were also 2 new participants in this season, @Candy Gaga, who already participated as a jury member, and @Nuggets, who surprisingly ended 2nd, earning one of the best recent debuts.

The final of the contest was held at The Seed Vault in Longyeabyen, Svalbard, one of the northenmost norwegian settlements. The winner was Sweden but for the first time under the hands of Dutch, who had chosen Léon and her song You And I to represent the scandinavian country. This also marks the third consecutive scandinavian victory, with Sweden becoming the first country to win the game 4 times.

Theme
The main theme of the 15th season was art. Many of the visuals where as a painting on a canvas, similar to the logo of the season, and the votes looked like a wall in an art gallery.



Bidding Phase
For the first time ever, the winner of the previous season took the hosting rights to the level of making a full bidding phase to choose the venue. Previously, the contests where held in the main venue of each winning country, being mainly capital cities the chosen ones. All of them where chosen by the host of the game, rather than the current winner.

The initial list of venues included 10 venues. The 4 shortlisted venues where announced one week after the s14 final took place. Despite that, The Seed Vault in Longyearbyen was chosen over them without being even an arena suitable for a concert. It was only chosen to remark the victory of the song "The Seed" and celebrate its message.

In orange, the shortlisted venues, in blue the chosen one to host the event.

Returning artists
Ina Wroldsen was the first comeback presented, she participated before in season 10 where she finished 3rd. Kimbra participated in season 8 before, where she ended 4th. Kali Uchis came back to the contest after participating in season 7 where she ended 7th. FEMM broke the record of gap between participations after participating in season 2 before (where they ended 6th), making it a gap of 12 seasons.

Final
Initially, Italy was drawn at 6th place, but due to a change of representant on the day of the release of the songs it got pushed to 9th position and revealed on day 2. Three countries were disqualified before the final ceremony, those were Taiwan, Malta and Indonesia for not submitting their votes on time. They were initially drawned at 22nd, 27th and 32nd spot respectivelly. This would have been Malta's first participation ever.

Uniqueness Award
For the full list of recipients of the award, see Uniqueness Award The winner of the award was announced during the last part of the final ceremony. This time it was @blackstar who took the prize representing Philippines with the artist Toro y Moi and his peculiar song Freelance.

Other participants
@kvnrp confirmed at the beginning of season 14 that he would be withdrawing for a season, due to a large amount of projects planned for the time this season is scheduled to be held. Despite this early withdrawal, he later confirmed he would participate, as the date of the season had been pushed and became suitable for him, but in the end as a jury member.

@JennyWayne initially was meant to participate with Italy again, but as she didn't send her song on time, that spot was given to @Nuggets who only wanted to participate representing that country and as he didn't get it initially, he was meant to participate as a jury member.

@Marvsnr confirmed that he chosed to remain a jury member for another season.

Malta
The maltese entry brought some controversy as the duo that represented the country, The Ting Tings, was actually british. It only was allowed to represent the country because one of the parents of the members was maltese, despite him having english nationality and being born in England. Meaning that not even 50% of the representants could be considered maltese. In the end, the country withdrew before the final, for unrelated reasons to the controversy.