Wonderful Song Contest 51

Wonderful Song Contest 51 will be the fifty-first edition of the Wonderful Song Contest. The contest took place in Caracas after the Venezuelan victory in the 50th edition. A total of 81 countries competed in Wonderful Song Contest 49. The 50th edition was win by and their song "All I Want From Christmas Is You" by Mariah Carrey, which got a total of 375 points. Prequalified countries for this edition are:, , , ,  and. They are directly qualified to the final, while the other competing countries are split into four quarter finals. ,, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , are withdrawing for current edition and any country is returning or debuting from the contest. The Semi Final allocation draw took place on TBA January 2020 at the WBU headquarters in Prague. This is the first time, when we have sneak peeks & prequalification round! Sneak peeks will have 4x 8 entries and 2x 9 entries.

Information


On 28 November 2020 it was announced that Amsterdam will serve as the host city of the Wonderful Song Contest 50.

Host City
Caracas (/kəˈrækəs, -ˈrɑːk-/, Spanish: [kaˈɾakas]), officially Santiago de León de Caracas, abbreviated as CCS, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas (or Greater Caracas). Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the northern part of the country, within the Caracas Valley of the Venezuelan coastal mountain range (Cordillera de la Costa). The valley is close to the Caribbean Sea, separated from the coast by a steep 2,200-metre-high (7,200 ft) mountain range, Cerro El Ávila; to the south there are more hills and mountains. The Metropolitan Region of Caracas has an estimated population of almost 5 million inhabitants.

The center of the city is still Catedral, located near Bolívar Square, though some consider the center to be Plaza Venezuela, located in the Los Caobos area. Businesses in the city include service companies, banks, and malls. Caracas has a largely service-based economy, apart from some industrial activity in its metropolitan area. The Caracas Stock Exchange and Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) are headquartered in Caracas. PDVSA is the largest company in Venezuela. Caracas is also Venezuela's cultural capital, with many restaurants, theaters, museums, and shopping centers. Caracas has some of the tallest skyscrapers in Latin America, such as the Parque Central Towers. The Museum of Contemporary Art of Caracas is one of the most important in South America.

Caracas has one of the highest per capita murder rates in the world, with 111.19 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.

Before the city was founded in 1567, the valley of Caracas was populated by indigenous peoples. Francisco Fajardo, the son of a Spanish captain and a Guaiqueri cacica, who came from Margarita, began establishing settlements in the area of La Guaira and the Caracas valley between 1555 and 1560. Fajardo attempted to establish a plantation in the valley in 1562 after these unsuccessful coastal towns, but it did not last long: it was destroyed by natives of the region led by Terepaima and Guaicaipuro. Fajardo's 1560 settlement was known as Hato de San Francisco, and another attempt in 1561 by Juan Rodríguez de Suárez was called Villa de San Francisco, and was also destroyed by the same native people. The eventual settlers of Caracas came from Coro, the German capital of their Klein-Venedig colony around the present-day coastal Colombia–Venezuela border; from the 1540s, the colony had been de facto controlled by Spaniards. Moving eastward from Coro, groups of Spanish settlers founded inland towns including Barquisimeto and Valencia before reaching the Caracas valley.

On 25 July 1567, Captain Diego de Losada laid the foundations of the city of Santiago de León de Caracas. De Losada had been commissioned to capture the valley, and was successful by splitting the natives into different groups to work with, then fighting and defeating each of them. The town was the closest to the coast of these new settlements, and the colonists retained a native workforce, which allowed a trade network to develop between Caracas, the interior, and Margarita; the towns further inland produced ample cotton products and beeswax, and Margarita was a rich source of pearls. The Caracas valley had a good environment for both agricultural and arable farming, which contributed to the system of commerce but meant that the town's population was initially sparse, as it was only large enough to support a few farms.

Bidding phase
Only one main venue was announced as possible venue for the competition to be held. It has a capacity of 20,000 and several big concerts and sport events take place here.
 * The host city had to be near a major airport.
 * The venue must be available for at least six weeks before the contest and one week after the conclusion of the contest
 * The venue must not be open-air, but an air-conditioned building with a capacity of at least 10,000 and a minimum ceiling height of 15 metres (49 ft), insulated for sound and light.
 * The green room must be located as close to the arena as possible (or within it), with a capacity of 300.

Presenter
On 28 November 2020 it was announced that Fletcher, Duncan Laurence, R3hab and Nikkie de Jager will be hosts for Wonderful Song Contest 50.

Eleonora Pons Maronese (born June 25, 1996) is a Venezuelan and American[disputed – discuss] Internet celebrity, YouTuber, singer, and actress. She stars in The Secret Life of Lele Pons, a YouTube Original docuseries providing a look at her personal life, and hosts her own Spotify-exclusive podcast titled Best Kept Secrets with Lele Pons.

Pons came to prominence on Vine before the platform shut down in 2016. She has since branched out, creating comedy sketches for YouTube, where, as of November 2020, has over 17 million subscribers. Apart from social media, Pons has acted in film, television, and music videos, has released her own music, and co-authored a novel in 2016. Pons was born in Caracas, Venezuela. She moved to the United States at the age of five and was raised in Miami, Florida. She graduated from Miami Country Day School in 2015 and moved to Los Angeles, California. She has said that she had trouble making friends in high school, so she "would get hurt to make them laugh". She has also said that she was bullied at high school. She said "I'm not like the cool girls—I'm the other girl. The one that's basically a nerd, but proud of that."

Pons has Tourette syndrome and severe obsessive-compulsive disorder. Pons began her career on the video platform Vine. She has said she used Vine to showcase the creative things she was already doing. Speaking to Teen Vogue, Pons said, "I started with my friends, and I started becoming bad. At first it was just being really creative - it wasn't even funny stuff." Her follower base continued to grow and Pons has said that it "got to the point where a lot of people depended on me to make them... just so they could get a laugh." She became the first "Viner" to reach one billion loops.

Writing in The Cut, Allie Jones described Pons' comedy as "universal, physical, and complete with a twist ending". Pons' comedic style has also been criticised. For instance, former Viner, Cody Ko, critically viewed one her sketches, saying, "This was written by a four-year-old." Pons cites, among her inspirations, several Latina stars including Sofía Vergara, Gaby Espino, and Shakira. In 2016, she was signed with entertainment company Shots Studios.

Pons is managed by John Shahidi of Shots Studios.

Pons has used her success in Internet comedy to launch a number of enterprises. In 2015, she launched a jewelry collection called UNO Magnetic. In 2016, Pons co-authored a novel based on her own high school experiences, Surviving High School, co-authored with Melissa de la Cruz. Pons starred as Callie in the 2016 romantic comedy We Love You, released on YouTube Red. In the movie, characters played by Yousef Erakat and Justin Dobies both fall for Pons, who is "cool enough" to date both of them at the same time. The movie was produced by YouTube and AwesomenessTV.