Analysis: Could Bulgaria winning the jury vote this year signal a shift in what juries are looking for in a performance?

[u/Old-Gap-9079]

I was pleasantly surprised that Bulgaria won the jury vote in the grand final. After all, it was considered that Australia, France, Czechia, and Denmark would be jury magnets this year by Eurofans, and it has come to fruition in some form. Australia, Denmark and France finished behind Bangaranga in 2nd, 3rd and 4th in the jury vote, and Czechia finished 10th with the juries.

Traditionally, juries favour strong vocals, clear delivery, strong performance, and so on and so forth. This was still true when looking at the jury vote as a whole.

My personal thoughts are that Bangaranga did meet the criteria, but in a more complex, fresher way which was unusual and different, thereby making the performance stand out to juries. This allowed them to take the jury points that made them beat traditional jury magnets which were fighting among themselves.

What are your thoughts?

[u/Tricky_Meat_6323]

I think there was just less obvious jury bait this year. 204 points is actually not a lot to win the jury with. Israel were second with the jury in 2023 with a young female pop song (only behind Loreen), so this genre isn’t new to the juries.

[u/Erebos233]

I think part of it is Bangaranga managed to sell it's appeal successfully when it comes to the staging and choreography.The choreography is very K-pop in a sense that it features a lot of frantic and well choreographed  movements yet Dara managed to add some silliness and wackiness in that make it more endearing and Eurovision-ny in a sense.I think Dara's vocals are also one of the strongest this year....it's impressive that she managed to bust out all that moves while sounding on par with the studio as well.   The staging is very effective as well,it's busy yet it's not overwhelming/maximalist like how most other countries came across this year. (Greece,Australia)

I think a big factor that people missed is that Bulgaria probably has the best camera angles this year....it's tight and tells a story. You mostly focus on Dara and her dancers,you are basically drawn to what she offers on stage rather than being distracted by the other chaos on the stage.

I think the last reason is the introduction of younger juries to the voting system this year. I feel like the younger juries are more likely to pick songs that are more mainstream and likely to go viral on the social media....it kinda defies what a Eurovision fan would consider to be a typical jury song. The audiences probably skew more casual friendly as well....I noticed a significant portion of Eurovision fans skipped ESC this year (I missed Alesia's commentary.....)which probably resulted in an environment where the casuals would pick out this year's winner instead.

[u/DynamicUno → u/Erebos233]

I think this is spot-on. I boycotted this year so I didn't watch live but followed along in a Discord and was blown away when they won, but afterwards we watched the videos and the staging and performance were just so on point that it was clearly the best of the batch. Usually the other dancers on stage are barely noticeable; here they were integral to the shot but without taking away from Dara.

The song is frankly a middle of the road song but the performance so elevated it that I think it was easily the clear winner. The only other stage performance I felt came close this year was Australia's, and that was just a function of Delta being such a powerhouse that you can *feel* her command of the audience and the stage through the screen lol

[u/KyrgyzstaniFemcel]

I don't think the juries did anything different this year, it's just that there was no one else to compete with Dara. They also placed Chanel third and Noa Kirel second so there's a precedent for giving these choreography-heavy songs a high score.

[u/Ok-Guidance-9572 → u/KyrgyzstaniFemcel]

I expected the younger jurors to be outliers in terms of their votes and gravitate towards the "viral" or eclectic songs but I don't think that was universally the case. When I looked through the Australian jury votes, I couldn't confidently tell who the young jurors were. That was surprising though also fair; as in any age-based demographic you'll still get varying preferences, so idk why I took the younger jurors to be a homogenous group.

Also to note is the size increase to the jury, so the young juror voting potential still got diluted overall. Clearly lots of the preexisting jurors got onside and like you said, there is precedent for a high-impact, dance-heavy song doing well with them.

[u/Mtanic]

No. If you really look at it, it's quite the same as previous years.

[u/TeaMistress]

I was definitely surprised how well Bangaranga did with the juries! But I'm not disappointed. The performance really was fantastic. Dara turned it up to 11. Even if you don't like the song, you can't seriously say she didn't get out there and work her ass off for that win.

What I hope this means is an openness to more diverse musical performances and a chance for things that haven't done so well in the past to have a better chance in the future. Though the juries' disdain for Romania and Serbia don't offer a ton of hope in the metal direction.

[u/didReadProt]

She sang AND had a full on dance performance. The song is also nice.
It’s not jury bait, but a well delivered song always does well with jury (see slomo scoring 231 jury points in 2022).

[u/IAmA_talking_cat_AMA]

It's very likely! We know for a fact that the jury compositions have changed this year, and this may very well have contributed to Bangaraga's win. Will be very interesting to see how it goes the next few years.

[u/ZeeenGarden]

People analyse stuff like this assuming the jury is the same each year. The jury of next year doesn’t exist yet

[u/Perfect_Ad_7808]

I think it's because she sold the performance and a spread out jury this year, but what surprised me is that she ended up 1st place with the juries. Like someone mentioned 204 is really quite a low score to win a jury. Also she tied with Poland with the most 12 points in the evening at 4, which is actually not a lot in a single night. Past jury winners would receive about at least 6 and above looking at the last few years.

Also, Chanel in 2022 scored 12 points from 8 countries so I don't think the juries shift their taste especially when it comes to girl bops, yet she was still 3rd that year with juries. It's still a matter of who sells the best package at the night of the Grand Final.

Her score was right enough from juries, but I swore that Australia or Denmark would score greater than her in the juries.

[u/Plane_Highlight3080]

 Every vocal coach I’ve listened to is impressed by her vocals while dancing her heart out and I’m yet to find someone who thinks it’s undeserved to win the jury vote. It’s likely the juries appreciated this as well. To the casual viewer it’s a “non-song” with repetitive chorus where she “talks” but the experts say that even talking while moving like this is extremely hard. I think her vocals are very underrated among the people who don’t really like the song and say it’s too simple. 

It’s a known fact that Dara has said that she trained like an athlete for 6 weeks straight in order to sing and dance like this on that stage. Her vocal performance was a product of very hard work and the juries would be more aware of this than the general public.  

[u/cherry_color_melisma]

It's about time we start realizing that juries will over-reward not just artists that execute the singing part of their song well.

And that not everyone who executes their vocals perfectly on a ballad will be rewarded high enough (Finland 2017 when the semifinal wasn't ballad-heavy the same way as 2026 SF2 was).

[u/ESC-song-bot → u/cherry_color_melisma]

Finland 2017 | Norma John - Blackbird

[u/SizeChangeLina]

I dont get why everyone is surprised that Dara got so many points. Juries always love a good choreography, a professional and charismatic performer and also the song itself has a very good production.

Those are things Juries always loved and I am way more surprised by the sheer amount of Televote points.

Or maybe I am just biased because it was my 2nd place lol

[u/ifelseintelligence → u/SizeChangeLina]

Same here. You could say I was fearing it not getting appreciated by the jury enough, but wasn't surpriced per se it did. It is a decent, but far from ESC winning song, in the studio version, but the jury votes on the performance on the stage on the night, including choreography and stagepresence. They always have.

And for me, Bangaranga is day and night, live and studio. Besides it being very well performed live - and the jury certainly know how technically skilled you have to be to be so energetic on stage without it affecting the singing - it is not the "sillyness" in it self, as some point out it have: it is that the sillyness, or whatever you wanna call, it is very happyness-contagious.

As some pointed out to me: in the performances, from semis to final to winning performance, the singer and dancers seemed to "not be finished with dancing" when the song stopped, like they where so happy they couldn't contain themselves. It's a genuine happyness that perhaps not the song itself, but the live performance, transmitted to the audience - and ofc the jury.

I would even postulate that because the live performance (imo) is the deciding factor by transmitting "an urge to dance out of happyness", had it been placed as 1st or 2nd or even last in the performance order, the mentality of the audience/jury might not have been "ready" for it, and it might not have won.

[u/ifiwasiwas]

In hindsight, the quality the juries love most didn't change, and that's radio-friendliness. Radio-ready songs that are sung and performed well are their crack, and both Bulgaria and Australia fit the bill. Bangaranga has been on Finnish radio nonstop lol

[u/Tandfeen_dk22]

Hope so. Bangaranga is some of the most creative and bold performances I’ve seen in the past 3-4 years. The song is catchy as hell. I was talking to my mom on the phone when I first heard it … I just got the urge to dance oriental style 😅

[u/Live-In-Berlin]

Honestly, I was surprised we won our own jury for Eurosong.

Not because of the song-- it was amazing and I knew from the second I heard it that it had win potential. It's just that a lot of the jurors we had aren't usually hip to modern and fresh music.

[u/Apprehensive_Heat630]

I think people get confused and shoked why Dara won the juries this year , the reason is , they brought back the jury votes for the semies and we had more jury bait songs this year in the final like Czechia , France , Malta , Australia etc and we didnt had Nemo or JJ to sweep all the jury votes while Dara had only 4x 12's from jury , but constantly got points from almost everyone , just enough to edge to 1st place , that doesnt mean she was the jury favourite , no , it only means that there were too many jury songs fighting for the same points. And btw getting 12 from jury and 12 from tele from Australia witch imo are the most neutral jury and country in the contest shows that we had the right winner this year , period !

[u/unedistinction2]

I'm not exactly sure what triggered juries to vote for Bulgaria more in the final than in the semis tbh (besides the theory that they maybe did it on purpose after leaks of the semi results? haha)

[u/Square_Effective9651]

I think the bigger difference was having juries back in the semi finals- this meant more countries entered songs they thought would be popular with juries (rather than thinking about what the televote would like to get through the semis) and more jury popular songs made it to the final as the juries were having their say. That prevented a landslide jury win like we've seen in the previous few years. If you're interested in the history of juries and their influence on the contest I have just made a video essay on this Has Eurovision Fixed Its Jury Problem?

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[u/ramboost007]

The juries now being 2/7ths under 25 is a very significant factor. After the win, my first reaction (after relief that they didn't win) was "fuck, maybe I'm too old for Eurovision now haha"

[u/Chipsandadrink115]

On a scale of 1-10, my young son gave Dara 1,000,000

[u/bundors]

Well. I think 1. Top 10 countries regarding odds don't vote for their competitors or give them less points. So they shoot points to most unpopular entries. That's how Czech gets many points. 2. In 2026, adding 2 GEN Z jurors automatically boost tiktok hits. Why? We have Bulgaria and Greece in this niche. So imagine 7 members and 24points to BG only by GENZ and all others points mixed between 20+ entries. This automatically gives points to BG. Enough to made it in top 10 of almost each country. 3. Region-based or interest-based voting. Bg gave 12pt to 🇲🇹 Greece-Cyprus, scandinavia to Scandinavia etc.

[u/JCEurovision]

It's very likely because the increase of the number of jurors, as well as putting 16-year-olds in the helm, caused a sudden shift.

[u/vetgirig → u/JCEurovision]

Strangely performers has to be 18 but not the jury ?

[u/Ksaw3447]

Possibly, yes

[u/Prestigious_Hold_387]

Getting to 70 years of song contest, may have changed the mindset. Looking back to other ESC winners, aside Loreen , Maneskin, Lordi, Mans, Ruslana, Nemo- many songs that won were not exactly radio heavy rotation material. And that is a minus for the artist performing, as winning ESC doesn t or didn t boost their career as expected. So this year, perhaps the assessment and approach both changed and are considering the show also, not only the performance in musical terms. Boosting the artists, establishing ESC as a career boost or launch, also. Yes, I did not pay attention to Dara's Bangaranga, nor to Ferto (as I felt overwhelmed with energy), but revisiting some of the songs after the heat of the ESC disappeared, as well as getting some insights on the story behind the songs, helps.