Redditvision Song Contest 51

Redditvision Song Contest 51 was the fifty-first ordinary and fifty-sixth overall edition of the Redditvision Song Contest. It was hosted by u/AwesomeJoshua in Basel, Switzerland after their win in the previous edition, with the song "Strange" by Celeste.

The winner was Honduras with the song "Save Me" by Empress Of.

Visual design
"The Midnight Festival" was announced during the live show of special edition 5 on May 9th 2022. A poster with the headline "An Homage to The History of Art and Literature" was unveiled, which promoted the theme of the edition - a festival honoring the fine arts. This edition was centered all around literature and art, with many paintings appearing for the duration of the edition in various ways, such as in teasers, announcements, semi-final allocations, trailers, and in the live show. Along with that, a time motif ran throughout: The country claims were announced with a video of a clock ticking down to midnight, and Salvador's "The Persistence of Memory" was the main painting of the edition. Each post was also always posted at midnight in Europe.

The logo of the edition had a poster of "The Midnight Festival" inspired by the International Typographic Style, a graphic design style that emerged in the early 1920s in Europe, but was further developed by designers in Switzerland in the 1950s. This was directly correlated to the edition taking place in Basel. Behind the poster was a black, brick wall which has been vandalized with the logos of edition 14 and 25, an homage to the previous two editions hosted by u/AwesomeJoshua.

A carousel insignia was used in all graphics to represent the carnival aspect of this festival, along with alluding to nature of clocks. The hands on a clock continuously spin, much like how a carousel does.

The semi-final allocation teasers each had a painting in the background. These were "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat, "Nighthawks" by Edward Hopper, "La Valse" by Félix Vallotton, and "The Lovers II" by Rene Margritte.

During the live show, each user was called with an accompanying literary quote, as well as a famous painting. These quotes were pulled from various genres, such as young adult, mystery, classics, non-fiction, as well as children's literature. The paintings also covered most art periods and movements, ranging from the Renaissance, the Rococo, the Romantic era and Art Deco all the way to Modern and Contemporary art.

The recaps were made by u/AwesomeJoshua. The intro featured various paintings displayed at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Participants
As usual, 66 users participated in the edition, including one user made their debut: u/Crafty-Apple5038.

Users u/Muzaxe14 and u/PercyYates originally signed up for the edition, but failed to submit a song by the deadline and were subsequently disqualified from editions 51 and 52. Two waitlisters filled their spot.

National finals
In total, eleven national finals were hosted: Saint Lucia, Canada, Georgia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Bhutan, Isle of Man, Philippines, Malawi, Montserrat, British Virgin Islands, as well as a joint national final between Austria and Italy.
 * See also: National Finals in Redditvision Song Contest 51

Automatic qualifiers
A YouTube playlist can be found here, a spotify playlist can be found here, and a recap can be found here.

Semi-final 1
Switzerland and Macao voted in this semi-final.

Semi-final 2
The Bahamas and Italy voted in this semi-final.

Semi-final 3
British Virgin Islands and Cuba voted in this semi-final. Jamaica, Central African Republic and Marshall Islands were disqualified.

Grand Final
61 users voted in the final, including 59 participants and two rest-of-the-world voters: Malaysia (u/ShellEase) and Pakistan (u/Watermelon_Milk_Tea). In addition to the three users disqualified in the semi-final voting period, the following participants did not vote: Belgium (u/zuperZany) and Cameroon (u/NonBinaryLandlord) both withdrew, whilst Northern Mariana Islands (u/curryraejepsen) and Nauru (u/pishmagma) were disqualified and thus ineligible to participate in edition 52.