In about an hour from now it will be the start of the most watched final in Sweden. Yes, the conclusion of Melodifestivalen is about to begin and in only approximately 3 hours we will know who the winner is and who will go on to represent Sweden in the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest.

Did you know that Melodifestivalen is literally the most watched show in Sweden? It is popular that it beats many football matches, regular shows and even Eurovision itself. The Swedes love their home made music contest and in recent years Eurovision has taken ideas out of Melodifestivalen to make it more popular and exciting. Tonight marks the 57th edition of the show.

For the last 6 weeks there has been a Melodifestivalen show every Saturday at 20:00 CET (Central European Time) and 4 of those shows were semi-finals and 1 show being “Andra-Chansen”, or Another Chance in English. Basically the top two most voted for songs from each semi-final goes directly to the Grand Final being held tonight at the Friends Arena in Stockholm, whilst an extra two from each semi-final (the 3rd and 4th most voted for songs) go into the Andra-Chansen show. The Andra-Chansen show was broadcast last Saturday and comprises of duels, where two songs go head to head and has a flash vote to determine which song of the two then goes to tonight’s final. This gives us 12 songs in total for tonight’s final, let’s have a look at the line-up:

1. Ace Wilder – Wild Child
2. Boris René – Her Kiss
3. Lisa Ajax – I Don’t Give A
4. Robin Bengtsson – I Can’t Go On
5. Jon Henrik Fjällgren – En Värld Full Av Strider (Eatneme Gusnie Jeenh Dåaroeh)
6. Anton Hagman – Kiss You Goodbye
7. Mariette – A Million Years
8. FO&O – Gotta Thing About You
9. Nano – Hold On
10. Wiktoria – As I Lay Me Down
11. Benjamin Ingrosso – Good Lovin’
12. Owe Thörnqvist – Boogieman Blues

As many Melodifestivalen fans would know, there are a few annual competitiors in there with pretty much all but 4 of them participants taking part in previous editions. None of these performers have won before though. It is worth sparing a thought here for Loreen (and Charlotte Perrelli) who are both previous winners of MF (Melodifestivalen) as well as Eurovision itself. Charlotte Perrelli failed to qualify from this 1st Semi-Final whereas Loreen criminally only made it to Andra Chansen before being cruelly knocked out by Anton Hagman in the last duel. Let’s just take a moment to watch her stunning performance again…

Going on to tonight though, there are still a number of great songs in the line-up and I think that this year is going to be the closest race since 2014 (remember when Sanna Neilsen beat Ace Wilder by a mere two points?). The bookies favourite seems to be Wiktoria with the song “As I Lay Me Down” but I still think it is anyone’s game and the votes from the International Jury (who votes every year in the final) will determine the winner.

This year representatives from Armenia, Australia, United Kingdom, France, Israel, Italy, Malta, Norway, Poland, Czech Republic and Ukraine will make up the International Jury and much like in Eurovision will determine half of the result in tonight’s final. An exciting change came into Eurovision last year where there is points from the juries and then added to the public votes in bulk votes really wowed the viewers, and this originated from Melodifestivalen where you don’t know who the winner will be right until the very last moment. Will there be a big difference in who the two winners are, or will they both vote for the same song?

So don’t forget to watch by going to svt.se and searching for Melodifestivalen. The show starts at 19:00 UK time and I am so excited to watch it. Here are my three favourites from tonight’s show and I hope that they do well…

Who are you supporting tonight?