Participating countries Did not qualify from the semi final Countries that participated in the past
Vote
Voting system
Each country's 10 favourite songs are awarded 12, 10, then 8 through to 1 points based on the votes of the population of each country. All participating countries in the semi-finals and final will have the right to cast points in the final.
Fifty-five countries will participate in the contest, with Nicolas' Neighbour returning after one edition absence, Spinachia withdrawing permanently and Pinnipedia debuting.[3]
Locations of the host city (red) and remaining candidate cities (blue)
Venue
The contest will take place for the third time in Tikata, following the country's victory in the ISC 67 edition with the song "Find Me", performed by Sigma and Birdy. Following a bidding phase, Surme Arena in Lisbon was selected as the contest venue by host broadcaster Royal Tikatan Radio Television (RTRT) and the Internatia Broadcasting Union (IBU).
The multi-purpose arena was built in 2007 and has a capacity of 39,5000 attendees, making it the largest indoor venue in Tikata and among the largest in Internatia. It is located in the city centre of Surme. Surme Arena hosted inaugural contest of Internatia Second Chance Contest.
Bidding phase and host selection
Following victory, the director-general of RTRT, Anna Orense, confirmed that the broadcaster would organise the contest and invited all interested cities to bid for hosting. City councils of Tramandi and Madakia – previous cities that hosted Internatia Song Contest in Tikata – voted against proposed bids citing high cost of organization and busy schedule of appropriate venues.
Six cities submitted applications by the deadline of 30 December 2017: Cundere Sul, Dilmoff, Livinera, Surme, Turzy and Zixan. Prior to the opening of the bidding process, the cities of Avrio, Gareh, Grusse, Nabashunte, Vincenta and Viretunata declared their interest in hosting the contest, but did not submit a formal bid.
Host selection
On 2 January 2018, the IBU and RTRT announced that Surme had been selected as the host city, overcoming confirmed bids from other cities. In addition, RTRT announced that show will be held in Surme Arena.
The preliminary dates for the contest were announced on 30 December 2017 at a meeting of Heads of Delegation in Madakia, with the semi-final expected to take place on 15 February and the final on 28 February 2018. These preliminary dates were chosen by the IBU to avoid the contest coinciding with any major television and sporting events scheduled to take place around that time, but it was also announced that dates may be changed in exceptional circumstances. On 1 January 2018 RTRT spokesperson, Nicolas DeSerme confirmed that Tikatan broadcaster will cooperate with Percheran broadcaster, A+, with organization of contest.
Presenters
On 6 January 2018, RTRT and IBU announced that the contest would be hosted by Millie Bobby Brown, who was featured artist in video of Tikatan winning song from Internatia Song Contest 66.[4]
Semi-final allocation draw
The host nation, Tikata, was originally included in Pot 2 but as automatic qualifier was exempt from the draw. Spinachia was included in Pot 4, but was excluded after it's withdraw, while Pinnipedia was included in Pot 5 to make number of countries in pot even.[5]
The pots were calculated by the Alteusian broadcaster BovineTV and are as following:
The IBU announced on 3 February 2018 that 55 countries would participate in the contest. Nicolas' Neighbour confirmed their return after withdrawing from the previous edition, while Pinnipedia debuted in place of Spinachia, which decided to withdraw permanently from the contest.[3]