AINVision Cattala 2013

The AINVision Song Contest Cattala 2013 was the 7th semiannual AINVision Song Contest. The contest took place in Jennai, Cattala, following Celeste Buckingham's victory in AINVision Ascadylea 2012 with the song Run Run Run. It was the first time Cattala had hosted the contest and the largest AINVision in history, with 22 participating countries and 24 voting nations.

This Song Contest brought many changes to the series, such as the return of pre-finals and the broadcasting rights being held for the first time by the public broadcaster of the host nation, as well as other aspects. It was declared by RMI, the host broadcaster, to be a return to the "Petrovar system" of 2010, which was highly successful but expensive. The voting format was in keeping with the past format of 0-7 points and 8, 10 and 12 for the most popular.

The winner was Kingston and Boyce with the song "Little Numbers" by BOY, which scored 131 points, the highest in AINVision history, beating Corraile's Sara Bareilles, a past winner, by 22 points. Hosts Cattala finished in third place, with Calaré in fourth and Asgard in fifth place.

Location


For the first time since the start of the competition the host city has been selected, and only the second time that a bidding system has been used in the contest since it began with Petrova being the only host bidder and then winning the contest. For this contest, multiple major towns were up for the bid to host the prestigious and lucrative music festival. The final two were narrowed down to Jennai and Celeste. On the 17th of March, the bidding from each city started with Jennai and Celeste.

Celeste bid
Celeste's bid focused on the Aziens district of Celeste with the potential of winning being described as a positive for the Amosseri Governor, Jeremia Swarn, who is hoping for this to draw in more tourists to the city. The stadium that was proposed to host it would have been the Dionysus Arena, which would need regeneration to get it to international event hosting standards. An alternative proposed would be the Lady Eliza Stadium in the same district, which if selected, would been the second venue in AINVision history to be open air, after Illu'a in 2010.

Celeste's drawback was it's lack of infrastructure compared to it's rival Jennai, where the arenas have enjoyed strong public transport and rail access for years. But the bid was backed by the Celestine Chambers of Culture, local radio and government.

Jennai bid
Jennai, which is the home of the winner Celeste Buckingham, was also in the running. Before RMI announced a bidding process, public opinion swayed to Jennai to host the contest. The city's infrastructure is better than Celeste's with the country's main airport, Jennai International, on the edge of the city and the best rail, metro and bus services in Cattala. The stadium was not been released publicly during bidding but has been hinted that it's infrastructure is "second-to-none", with some suggesting the Jennai Arena was most likely to host the contest. .



Jennai was criticized that the contest would not be put on the map because its infrastructure which is already in place and it's image as a tourist destination is already renowned, unlike Celeste.

Winning venue
On the 2nd of April, the winning bid was revealed to be Jennai with the selected venue being the Jennai Arena in the Harbour district of the city. The RMI Events selection committee chose Jennai and "hailed the metropolitan council and arts boards for their "drive and passion" to put on the "best AINVision in history"." Celeste were revealed to have insufficient infrastructure capacity despite the private backing of the capital's bid from senior RMI executives.

Jennai Arena hosted both the pre-final and the grand final, with other sporting and musical fixtures moved during the month of June to other venues in the city. The stadium has hosted performers including Kylie Minogue, Queen and U2 in the past, and is the home of indoor sports such as hockey, basketball and wrestling. It was built in the 1980s as part of the redevelopment of the harbour front and has extensive facilities for music contests. The city's metropolitan council, owners of the arena, took on a leading role in the coordination of hosting the contest, as well as security, transport and global branding alongside RMI.

AINTV vs RMI Events case
After Celeste Buckingham won the 2012 competition, RMI, the state broadcaster, announced its intentions to independently sell off the global rights to the 2013 Contest, which they would be hosting. The profits from the sale, expected to be around $120 million, would go towards paying for the costs of the contest being held in Cattala.

AINTV, the production company and rights owner of all previous Contests, took RMI Events to the High Court in Cattala in February 2013. On the 2nd March, the judge ruled in favour of the defendant, after AINTV presented what was described as a "weak, profit-hunting case with almost predatory undertones". RMI Director General Andrew Dasnell welcomed the announcement after leaving court, criticising AINTV's approach to negotations and argued that "RMI Events is a highly experienced media entertainment group and we know that they will host the best AINVision in history in three months time, with or without the support of AINTV".

The 2013 AINVision Song Contest became the first independently-produced broadcast of the concert, with the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Sport acting in an advisory and managerial capacity alongside RMI. AINTV had no role in the contest.

Riyadh Islamic Federation
On the 29th April, it was revealed that RMI and Cattalian delegates had met with Riyadhi officials in Al Maysah to discuss Riyadh's participation in the music contest. In the past, RMI has refused to confirm whether or not Riyadh would be allowed to field a representative after tensions between the two nations grew following the 2013 Nuclear Sanctions Crisis. Riyadh is still heavily sanctioned by Cattala.

Human rights groups and global republican movements threatened to protest at the Jennai Arena if Riyadh was allowed to participate, with Amnesty International urging the government to ban Riyadh from taking part. The Parliamentary Select Committee on the Riyadh Federation declared that the country must improve its human rights record before relations should be normalised.

Secret meetings continued between delegates from Cattala and Riyadh until the 4th of May, when Amnesty International protesters stormed the building. The event was filmed and streamed live onto the internet as officials were pelted with eggs and flour before security evacuated them from the building, bringing the meeting to an impromptu end.

On the 18th May, Riyadh officially declined to participate in the Song Contest.

Grand Final interval performances
During the interval of the Grand Final, Australian rapper Iggy Azalea and Albanian-British singer Rita Ora performed songs including explicit lyrics, sexualised dance routines and provocative costumes. Azalea provoked the most controversy with her performance of "Bounce", her new song that will not be made available in Cattala.

Leading conservative politicians, including senior government ministers, led condemnation of the performance as viewers also took to social media to express their shock at the contents of the contest. By midnight local time, just three hours after the contest, #iggyscandal was the highest trending hash-tag and is believed to have become the fastest trending phrase in the history of social media in Cattala.

Amongst the criticism of the performance by Azalea, RMI and the Public Decency Authority were also criticised, most notably by an editorial in the Daily Telegraph, which accused both organisations of gross misconduct and a failure to serve those who pay for their services.

Confusion about the selection of these two singers continued long after the Grand Final was over. Neither artist has ever performed or charted in Cattala before, and the day after the final, RMI Radio 1 refused to play their songs due to fears of retaliation from listeners and the media watchdog, which had no role in AINVision. Commercial radio stations do not even have their songs available. It also emerged that Cattala's contestant, Nina Nesbitt, was reportedly advised not to associate with the scandalous interval acts by her management, who said it could severely damage her domestic career.

Branding
RMI Events, co-ordinating the contest, have greater freedom over the branding than in previous competitions. The AINVision logo was initially kept the same, with the simple addition of the Cattalian flag into the heart as in the past. However in March, RMI unveiled a new brand for this contest and re-introduced the individual themes of the 2009 and 2010 song contests.

The AINVision symbol has been altered, with the crest of the second "i" in AINvision replaced by the official symbol of the union, the dove of peace. This was done in partnership with the Ministry of Culture and AINTV. For this contest only, the logo has been recoloured to Cattalian Blue.

A unique logo following the branding theme of "Four Joy" was created by RMI's internal creative division, a play on the motto of "For Joy". It contains 2 separate chevrons, one pointing left which is purple along with a chevron pointing to the right which is gold, and layered beneath the purple one. It is believed that these may alternate during the contest, as gold and purple is a general colour scheme. The diamond shape created is also a continuing theme, with the "Four" in the title created by the four corners. The AINVision Song Contest logo remains prominent over the diamond throughout initial branding.

RMI has announced a separate rebrand of all of its channels, programming and corporate branding for the AINVision period, with the RMI logo incorporated into the gold-and-purple diamond. The only department unchanged by the temporary rebrand is News, which will continue with its current style and will not advertise the song contest.

Corporate sponsorship
During the contest, multiple companies had chance to sponsor the contest while offering services to Jennai Arena, the participants, the viewers and others. Applications for corporate sponsors started on April 28th. This included travel arrangements with different companies and accommodation, to stadium furniture, to food and drink products. In total 18 companies agreed to sponsor the event in some manner. During the contest the sponsors who got their companies aired in adverts included; Bank of Veratlantea, New Holland Airways , Fontane , Nashi Electronics , Maple Crown , NEG Shemya and HSBC

Presenters
Along with other significant changes in the contest, the presenters line-up has also been reverted back to a Petrovar system. In previous contests, there was one host, usually the representative to the hosting country in AIN, whereas in the first few contests there were multiple co-hosts and the representative to the AIN for the country was not involved. In 2013, this format has been confirmed to return by RMI.

Initial speculation that the contest would return to a three-presenter line up was proven wrong when on the 19th May, "Dancing with the Stars" Cattala presenters Teresa Demalla and Victoria Cabello were confirmed as the presenters for both the Song Contest and the Grand Finale.

Participating countries
Official released participation has not been spoken of yet, with the participation application beginning in May. But some leaks have revealed in interest, including Kingston and Boyce returning for a second year, and new member Histalpol taking interest in joining with rumours of internal song selection in the local broadcasting union of the artist and the song.

The confirmation of acts started with media reports; first being on the 15th of April announcing Kingston and Boyce's entry, closely followed by Histalpol and Cattala, 2 days apart, with their entries, without revealing the song names. Official entries opened on the 28th April.

During the applications of the entries, many new countries approached to perform in AINVision including; Antarida, Asgard, Costa Palma, Histalpol, Llithustania, Melanesia, Mirani and New Holland. Kamchatka also returned after not participating in AINVision Ascadylea 2012. The entrants also saw the return of Sara Bareilles representing Corraile. On the 25th of May with exception from Calaré who applied on the 26th. The final count of countries participating came to 23, the highest reached in AINVision at that point.

On the 28th, all the participants were listed on one graphic that showed participants alphabetically. Along with that release, it was also released that countries can still sign up, but they will become reserves if a country pulls out from the contest or is not able to perform (noted that they will primarily be replacements in case anyone doesn't fill in the voting/broadcast threads.)

Final placings
1) The Asgard entry is not in any language; it consists of violin with vocal a cappella 2) The title of the Hong Kong entry is entirely in Okataian; the English title does not appear in the song. 3) The title of the Karasem entry is entirely in Indonesian; the English title does not appear in the song. 4) Slurian in the Okatabawashi entry is a fictional language created by the performers of the song.

Broadcasting
Because of the privatisation of AINVision for summer 2013 to RMI, distribution to an international audience with RMI had to be requested before the contest with multiple broadcasters requestion to air AINVision in their countries. The list below states which countries are having AINVision aired and the company airing it;

Nespirah Media Group OBC Veratlantean Broadcasting Network (VBN) Atlantsian National Broadcasting Royal Media International (RMI) (Host) Corraile Metro (CorMet) CP1 OOO (KonTV) Histalpol's Vision Broadcasting Company (HVBC)

🇭🇰 OBC Veratlantean Broadcasting Network (VBN) OBC Pervii Kamchatskii Channal (PKC) Tv Jaya IndroVision ALL.music Norderkanal

Kingdom Broadcasting Services (KBS) Sypogen Entertainment Network (SEN) New Holland Broadcasting Corparation (NHBC) New Holland Broadcasting Corparation (NHBC) OBC Queensland Broadcasting Corporation (QBC) Volgodon Media Network TakMusic 145