Globalvision Season 16

The 16th season of the Globalvision Song Contest also called as Globalvision: Autopilot Rollercoaster, which started on the 6th of September 2020, 4 months after the first season of the spin-off Globalvision: All Stars and 172 days after the end of season 15, being this the longest gap between seasons so far. The final ceremony was held on the 1st of October at the Liseberg amusement park in Gothenburg.

Initially 36 countries are meant to take part, but the final number got lowered by one. Out of the 35 final participants, 4 countries made their official debut. Those were: South Africa, Estonia, Jamaica and Mali, the first two already had attempts to participate in the past but never made it to the final before.

For this season the host (@TeenIdle) decided to let participants have more control on the game, letting them reveal their entries on the way they wanted, but always in their designated days for the reveals.

The winner of the contest was Morocco, that became the first African country to win the contest. Also its representant @Archie scored his first victory, becoming the 9th Globalvision winner. He won with Faouzia and her song Tears Of Gold.

Theme
Rollercoasters and amusement parks were the main insipiration for the theme of this season. As the song reveals were made by the participants themselves, there were only visuals for the logo and for the reveal of the votes. The first image below shows the visual of the points given by Morocco and the second one was the image used for the final position reveal, which was posted below every image instead of being added inside of the visuals.



Location
The venue for the 16th contest was announced by the previous winner, @Dutch, right after the announcement of the beginning of the season, in late August. To fit with the theme of the season he chose the Liseberg amusement park, located in Gothenburg. Details about other venues considered for the contest weren't announced, unlike in the previous season.

Participating countries
Peru, Greenland, Scotland and Iran were meant to participate initially but got replaced by other countries before the first day of reveals happened. The first two would have made their debut. Finland was also participating till it got disqualified for not submitting its votes on time. It was drawn at 24th place.

Returning artists
Yelle was the first returning artist to be announced on the second release day in this season. She participated before in season 13. Another two returning artists where announced on the third release day, being this Dagny and Au/Ra, who previously appeared on seasons 12 and 13 respectively, but this time brought by different participants. On the fourth day of reveals, another three returning artists were announced, although one of them didn't actually made it to final. Those were Maya Berovic who participated previously in season 7, followed by Josephine, another season 13 participant, and Yumi Zouma, a band that was meant to participate in season 9 with the same song that in this season, but got cancelled before the final voting took place.

Final
The following list is the final draw of the participating countries, excluding countries that got disqualified prior to the final.

Uniqueness Award
For the full list of recipients of the award, see Uniqueness Award The award went to the hands of the newbie @alsemanche who represented Mali with the band Tinariwen ⵜⵏⵔⵓⵏ and their song Sastanàqqàm, which became the first entry in a berber language. It was also announced that @Vandalain, representing Chile, ended in second place in the voting for the award.

Other participants
At the end of All Stars 1, @DiegoMonster announced his indefinite withdrawal from the game.

@benKo initially expressed intentions to participate, but as his desired country was taken by the time he entered to the thread, he decided to not participate.

@Smith got banned on the forum meaning that his participation seems unlikely in the future.

@RAMROD & @BLACKPINK confirmed their participation way early, before even the date of the season was revealed, but when the season kicked off none of them chose a country.

@GayPrideUnicorn was meant to debut representing Finland, but got disqualified for not sending his votes on time. The user chose the group Nightwish with their song Alpenglow to represent the country.

Many of the season 15 participants that withdrew in this season, didn't show up on the thread, so the reasons of their withdrawal remain unclear.