After a close win in the jointly hosted Brito-Estogium 49th World Hit Festival thanks to Franjo Kozina, Izmedu is proud to take the reigns of the 50th anniversary edition. This follows up on hosting the Orchestra Special Edition in Polumisec, marking the 50th World Hit Festival as Izmedu’s 10th hosting of the contest. The country once more stages the contest in Vodiznad. We here at RTI are happy to welcome nations both old and new to our country. And we are proud to help celebrate the milestone celebration for the contest as a whole.
Izmedu is a primarily sea-side nation, named for being nestled between the sea and the mountains. The country is known for its music scene and the immense tourism brought on due to participation and hosting the World Hit Festival. The country is fairly small in size and Mediterranean in climate. Home to 2,225,000 people, the country has been able to grow due to the sustained international exposure to contests such as the WHF and the WorldVision Song Contest. The country itself is culturally South Slavic and Dalmatian, locating itself inbetween those two cultures. This bears out in the country’s most famous landmarks and in its language. The architecture (especially in the country’s coastal cities) is noted for its distinct Dalmatian influence while the language, culture, and mannerisms take cues from Dalmatian custom and South Slavic (particularly Croatian) culture. Suitably, the country is striving towards a ‘slavo-romantic’ identity.
Izmedu has a long history in the World Hit Festival. Debuting in the 15th edition of the World Hit Festival, the early editions of the festival were tumultuous for RTI. Though the country did find success in entries through the form of Nada Markusic, Senka, etc, the channel did not have a strongly dedicated or even stable WHF team to help commit the channel and the country to the contest. Thus, the early WHF period for Izmedu was marked with a series of withdrawals. It was not until the 26th World Hit Festival that the country’s fortunes began to resemble the resounding success of today. Led by then Head of Delegation Pavao Sintic, he would aid the World Hit Festival team to Izmedu’s numerous victories on the WHF stage. The country went from strength to strength as it became one of the most successful nations in WHF history, with a win count that now amounts to 8 wins.
From all of us here at RTI, we wish to give you a very warm welcome to our country. Together, we will celebrate the everlasting legacy of the World Hit Festival.
After 50 editions, six editions of the Junior festival, five overseers, and the countless amount of nations that participate in the World Hit Festival edition in and edition out, contemplating the large and looming legacy of the WHF seems to be a task almost too intimidating and large to undertake. There is a lot for us to celebrate and that is the very magic of the World Hit Festival. Deeply imbibed in the music, the hosting, the overseership of the contest, to even the little things that make up your entry is the fact that you are leaving a legacy in the name of music. These legacies may be small or large, maybe it’s an entry from an edition that you haven’t thought about in a while, the entry that nearly won, to the entry that did, and to entries that may have not have placed as well as you hoped or anywhere inbetween. There’s so many entries and nations that make up our patchwork called the World Hit Festival, but they mattered. The fact that they entered our contest and made their mark here, no matter how small, is what keeps this contest alive and thriving to our present day. We want to celebrate the legacy, past and present, that the World Hit Festival created and will continue to create in the future.
Thus, the theme is a reflection and celebration of the World Hit Festival itself. We want to celebrate the legacy and longevity of the World Hit Festival, a legacy that we hope can live a lifetime for the many people that help make the contest possible. This theme marks the direction that we at RTI hope to embark as we plan out the logistics of the contest. First, we want to celebrate WHF’s storied and legendary past and reflect back on the legacy of what came before us. Second, we want to celebrate what that legacy is doing for our present and how we’ve grown and progressed from that legacy, the differences and similarities, and what makes the WHF endure throughout the years. Lastly, we want to also look towards the future with this edition. This edition marks the last senior edition that Britonisea will oversee. Thus, on top of the contest, we will also spend and dedicate time to find and elect the person that will be in charge of overseeing the contest after his retirement. Thus, for as much as we are celebrating what came before us, we also want to celebrate the future direction of the World Hit Festival. This specific edition is the bridge that helps fill that daunting gap.
To help fulfill this, we wish for this contest to be as big and wide-ranging as possible. We want the World Hit Festival’s golden edition to become the biggest and best that it can possibly we. Thus, we turn to you help create, build, and maintain that musical legacy.
Additional pictures to come later
The city of
Vodiznad (population: ~606,000) is Izmedu’s biggest city and also its capital. Past hosting booklets have gone on to nearly describe the city’s defining qualities in an almost exhausting length. As mentioned then, the city of Vodiznad is Izmedu’s oldest city, with some scholars arguing that it may even predate the concept of an Izmeduan nationstate. As Vodiznad is the cradle of what is currently known as Izmedu, the historical circumstances were there to help build the city into the cultural, musical, and political domestic powerhouse that it is today. Indeed, that is what one sees when they walk into the city. Many cultural artefacts and customs can be traced back to being rooted from Vodiznad or at least its larger surrounding area. It’s home to many of Izmedu’s most famed artists from the music industry, the hub for its film, fashion, and the cultural festivals and events that help defined and shaped Izmeduan culture. Though it is certainly far from Izmedu's only city, it is certainly the very emblem of not just Izmedu's shoreside and cultural roots, it is the metropolitan center that helps defines the country's legacy in many varying forms.
On top of being the cultural center for Izmedu, the city of Vodiznad is also home to many of its most famed cultural landmarks. These landmarks include places such as the Velikstav Walkway, the Agnial Marketplace, the Adviant Palace, the Ganer, El viatro teatar, the Point of Croinova, and the Rub Grada nature trail. These places are famed for being considered the 'postcard' places for the city. In the lead up to the World Hit Festival, these places will be open for festivalgoers to explore to their hearts desire. Additionally, many of these places play an integral part in showing the histories of both the city and country.
One cannot escape the city of Vodiznad without inevitably encountering the Velikstav Walkway. It was once originally built as a way for Izmedu to find a way to escape the shadow of its once brutal dictator, Tadija Damjan. With a deliberately ornate design that befit the Dalmatian architecture that permeates much of the older designs around Vodiznad, the Velikstav Walkaway represented a faint yet illusory hope for older Izmeduans. While there are certainly still traces of its original historical design, the walkway's modern history befits the cosmopolitan and musical direction that the country and the city are heading towards. The Velikstav Walkway is one of the most heavily visited areas in Vodiznad, often nearing visitor capacity during peak months and with many retail outlets, stores, and entertainment establishments vying to place branches on the walkway to take advantage of the heavy amount of visitors that often dot and populate the walkway. It is often common for the general area to be utilized as Izmeduan postcards, promo shoots, and tourism adverts.
The walkway itself is a shoreline walkway with both ends that consist of ports and marinas, providing visitors with ease of access to boats should they wish to explore the nearby sea. Provided there is space available, public performers and dancers, both representing traditional Izmeduan music (especially klapa) and more modern styles, are often present in the walkway. Additionally, the nightclubs that are present on the walkway itself also bolster its connection to music. The famed Ganer Klub is one of Izmedu's most popular nightclubs and is the center of Vodiznad's nightlife. Those who are now famed EDM producers and DJs have either performed a set at the Ganer at one point in their careers or could indeed trace the beginnings of their careers back to that very club. For the contest itself, the Velikstav Walkway will serve as the site of the very World Hit Festival Village itself; being a place where fans and delegations can party before, during, and after the contest.
Another landmark we wish to visitors to explore is El viatro teatar (translation: The Glass Theater). Though the name is a bit of a misnomer, the very architecture of the theater is built to make it look as if it were built out of glass, looking faintly quite like a mirror that reflects its surroundings. Revisions to its design have made more practical decisions and have since removed the ‘glass’ gimmick from its architecture and is now a general concert theatre. Able to seat around 2,500 people, the theater performs double duty as a museum for Izmeduan music history and also as a venue for contests such as VodiFest. The theater acts as the best option for more intimate performance spaces and contest pre-parties. For this contest, the theater will see expanded service as being the hub for domestic WHF pre-parties.
If you wish to experience Vodiznad beyond just the music, there are sites available such as the Rub Grada nature preserve and trail plus the Point of Croinova. These places are reflective of Izmedu’s strong insistence of protecting the environment and the legacy of years of legislative actions to ensure that natural landmarks remain protected. The Rub Grada trail runs around the outskirts of Vodiznad, providing an on-foot way to get to local municipalities such as Kaspari and Krigeria. Additionally, the very trail also leads to the Point of Croinova and the surrounding beaches in Vodiznad. The latter is described as being the point from which the first peoples that could be traced as Izmeduans stepped on. Though the validity of the claim is still in question, the Point of Croinova remains both a critical cultural landmark as well as a great place to relax and take pictures of the Izmeduan shoreline.
From music, history, nature, architecture, to everything that marks a city, Vodiznad hopes to help aid in preserving and bolstering the WHF legacy for editions and years to come. The city is the crossorads of the past, present, and the future. It already has deep ties to the contest itself, having hosted the contest in four occasions in the past. WHF50 will mark the fifth time the city has hosted the contest. We hope that visitors deeply enjoy their time here.
El stadion skolkje hosting VodiOmni - Additional image - Additional image
For the first time in an Izmeduan hosting, RTI has opted to use a stadium.
El Stadion Skolkje (capacity: ~44,000), known colloquially as ‘The Seashell Stadium,’ is Vodiznad’s oldest and biggest venues available for general purpose use. In fact, it was Izmedu’s first ‘big’ venue, originally commissioned by then dictator Tadija Damjan. Much of its history is marred with chronic disuse and lack of big events that necessitated a crowd as big as 40,000 people. It was not until the modern democratic republic’s establishment and the ensuing flourishment of the Izmeduan music industry that the stadium began to step out of the shadow of its original creator and began to be recognized as a viable venue on its own right. Even then, maintenance costs and the establishment of the Dragulj and La Cianta Arenas made the stadium look more obsolete. Without regular sporting events and artists favoring the more economical arenas, how did the stadium become the choice of venue for the 50th World Hit Festival?
Though the arena saw limited use after the revolutions, the very events that were housed within El Stadion Skolkje helped bolster its reputation for a generation. Its old ideals as a multi-purpose arena for the dictatorship’s behest were soon replaced as a venue for big music events that were too big for arenas such as the Dragulj and La Cianta. This stadium’s claim to hosting experience is the long-standing VodiOmni, a multi-day multi-genre festival that brings together the best of Izmeduan music across as many genres as possible. Originally conceived of as Izmedu’s premiere EDM festival, it has since gone from being a general pop music festival to one that brings together as many genres as possible. It performs double duty as Izmedu’s domestic music festival that isn’t closely connected to either the WorldVision or the World Hit Festival. It is a music contest and music festival all in one package, for artists that want to get a taste of competition without the pressure of representing Izmedu internationally. Thus, it has more than enough experience and host music related events such as the World Hit Festival.
With this history in mind, El Stadion Skolkje stands ready to host the 50th World Hit Festival. RTI has opted for a much larger arrangement in hopes to match the kind of scale offered by La liberia polja in WHF36, while utilizing the resources of a larger infrastructure surrounding the arena. Modern progressions in architecture and building standards have allowed El Stadion Skolkje to stay on par with the newer and smaller arenas built in Vodiznad. In the modern era, the stadium has gotten extensive renovations to improve the acoustics, energy efficiency, and audience comfort. One of the main features of the stadium itself is a retractable roof, allowing the festival to either be open-air or a more traditional closed interior. This retractable roof was designed to faintly evoke the image of a seashell, paying homage to Vodiznad’s identity as primarily a seaside city.
CGI Concept
The stage in action - The stage in action 2
The Design PhilosophyFor WHF50, RTI desired a stage that reflected the aesthetic of the contest logo while providing a wide enough space for both fans and performers to enjoy the contest. Stage designer Ivana Romic was hired to design the stage that RTI has on offer. The design primarily takes cues from the geometric aesthetic in the form of designing a diamond-esque stage that could be seen as a triangle depending on the stage configuration and shot perspective. The reasons for this kind of design are hinged upon RTI’s desire for a simple, elegant, and practical aesthetic for this stage. They wanted to stage to have both an openness and a function for delegations to unleash their creativity on the stage. Thus, RTI kept the stage mostly free of any other additions except for a screen that can be rigged up or down and receptacles on some parts of the stage for effects.
The Main StageAs described above, Ivana Romic’s stage design takes the form of a loose diamond. This diamond esque shape mostly protrudes to a triangle towards the audience’s direction. This diamond shape encases the main catwalk-esque platform that the acts will primarily perform in. The size of the catwalk is large enough to fit a sizable dance troupe on the stage without sacrificing excessive mobility and space. The platform is nestled inbetween two audience pits, designed by Romic for lucky fans that especially want to see their performer up close. Surrounding those pits are the small walkways that contain the receptacles that allow the special stage effects to happen.
The main stage is also home to two LED screens. The main LED screen covers the very backwall of the stage and can be used as a door. This door can be configured any way a delegation would need for a performance. It can be left half-open, used as a way to install additional lights, or simply left in darkness. On top of that screen is an additional screen that covers the back half of the stage. This screen can be rigged up or rigged down depending on what use you may need that additional screen for. Additionally, all aspects of the stage are themselves covered in LED. This also includes all of the floor. Thus, any part of the stage can be used to display either special video effects or packages that your delegation/act feels is necessary to help augment the performance.
The Special EffectsThe stage is built with a bevy of special effects that are commonplace for past RTI hostings of the WHF. On offer are pyrotechnics, aquatechnics, holograms, smoke screens, spark showers, etc. Whatever your delegation wants to do is absolutely fair game. You are also free to do post-production effects on your performance, do a bit of virtual reality, etc. Thus, the sky’s the limit for the possibilities that your delegation may well imagine for your nation’s performance.
TBD
Keeping in line with recent World Hit Festivals, Izmedu will be utilizing a two-phase voting reveal system. This approach was originally pioneered by Kalosia in the 26th World Hit Festival, which led to a thrilling conclusion in the form of an extended tie breakdown between Britonisea and Izmedu, leading to the former winning the contest. The approach has to generate an incredible amount of suspense and excitement during the voting reveal. RTI’s approach to the voting reveal will be similar to how it was done in the past, but it will take cues from the 49th World Hit Festival to the particulars of this reveal. There will be two phases to the voting.
Phase I will concern your 1-4 votes. Practically speaking, the host will reveal each nation’s 1-4 votes one by one, going through them as quickly and efficiently as possible while making sure to let enough suspense simmer in the audience. As the host will be the one in charge, your spokesperson will not be present during this phase. In Izmeduan hostings, the voting nation’s identity would often be revealed, which would lead to close observers to trace the possible outcomes in Phase II and often correctly guess what would happen. In WHF49, Estogium opted for a ‘mystery nation’ format, not revealing the identities behind the Phase I votes until after the contest was complete. RTI has opted to experiment with this mystery nation format to help bolster excitement and keep the tension until the last possible vote in Phase II.
Phase II will involve your 5 points. This is where your spokesperson will come to play and this will be the phase where we will reveal each nation’s identity. For all nations involved, this is a critical phase to watch. Due to the large points values involved in the process, dramatic changes to the scoreboard are expected to happen and are often pivotal to deciding the eventual winner of the contest. It is possible (as Llalta proved in WHF41) to nearly win the contest off the back of a stunning Phase II performance, having come from the bottom of the scoreboard in Phase I to being only a few points away from eventual winners, Kalosia. Thus, if your nation was not doing well in Phase I, you may well find yourself pleasantly surprised during Phase II.
Phase III is the tiebreaker phase invoked in the event that there is a tie for 1st place. For this, the normal tiebreaking procedure will be used. Which is as follows…
• 1st tiebreaker: The nation who received the greatest number of votes from individual nations wins. For example, if Donutland received 7 votes and Laugingstan received 6 votes, Donutland wins this tie.
• 2nd tiebreaker: If both nations are found to receive the same number of votes from individual nations, we use the number of 5 points they receive to break the tie. This time, both Donutland and Laugingstan received 7 sets of votes. Donutland received only 1 set of 5 points, but Laugingstan received 2 sets of 5 during Phase II. Laugingstan wins.
• 3rd tiebreaker: If the amount of 5 points remains the same, then we go down to 4. Donutland received 2 sets of 4, Laugingstan none. Donutland wins.
• 4th tiebreaker: Same procedure, but with 3 points. Donutland received 1 set of 3, but Laugingstan got 2 sets of 3. Laugingstan wins.
• 5th tiebreaker: Same procedure, but with 2 points. Donutland received 2 sets of 2, but Lauginstan got only 1 set of 2. Donutland wins.
• 6th tiebreaker: Same procedure, but with 1 point. Donutland sobs from its googly eyes and receives no sets of 1, but Laugingstan laugs all the way to the bank with 1 set of 1, and Laugingstan wins.
• 7th tiebreaker: If Donutland and Laugingstan have the exact same points breakdown, the nation that voted first will be the winner of the World Hit Festival. In this case, Donutland sent their votes earlier, and thus they win the final tiebreaker.
We want this to be the biggest World Hit Festival in the history of the contest. If this were the case, a record number of participants will trigger semi-finals for the third time in the contest’s history. The last time semi-finals were held was in WHF40. At the minimum (as per rule 8), we need enough participants to have at least 14 nations per semi-final. As the host qualifies to the grand final, this means we will need at least 29 nations minimum to trigger the semi-final stages. In the event that we have 35 or more complete entries, that will then initiate the previous edition’s top 5 (Izmedu, Britonisea, Llalta, Fromulya, Achaean Republic) all automatically qualifying for the grand final, with 30 nations vying to qualify.
As semi-finals are tentative and have only happened twice in the contest’s history, all specific details of the semi-final procedure will be finalized at a later date should semi-finals look like a possibility. If they do appear likely, I will convene with Britonisea to hammer out the details of what they specifically will look like, which will involve a change in the results reveal section. In the meantime, watch the space.
WHF40 acts as the precedent that I will utilize should semi-finals happen. The format of WHF40 was as follows. 30 nations participated in the contest, triggering semi-finals for the first time since WHF3. I utilized the two semi-final system from the Eurovision Song Contest and the host also qualified to the grand final. Thus, we were left with 29 nations vying for qualification. One semi-final contained 15 nations, another semi-final contained 14 nations. 7 nations would qualify from each semi-final, creating a grand final of 15 nations.
All three shows were contained within the IC thread, with each show constituting their own page and the initial OP being used as a large directory for readers to navigate for easier convenience versus needing 3 separate IC threads. During the contest proper, voting and slight entry edits were made available to grand finalists that wanted to either change their entry slightly or send me an updated ranking in light of the new finalists. Once the semi-final stage was done, the contest proceeded as any other WHF would with a lone grand final.
Though this is precedent, do not take this to mean that this will be completely replicated for the 50th World Hit Festival should semi-finals happen. The re-appearance of semis in WHF40 was not something I sketched out detailed plans for. Thus, aspects that were not executed cleanly in that WHF will of course be refined, modified, or not done entirely depending on how consultation with Britonisea goes. Since this is the 50th edition, our aim is to get as many people participating as possible to make this WHF an unforgettable edition that will make history.
These hosting details are not quite yet complete. A few more sections will be added in the lead up to the draft thread.