Austria in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018

Artists were nominated by the ORF Eurovision Song Contest Team led by ORF chief editor Stefan Zechner, which collaborated with music expert Eberhard Forcher who worked on the selection of the Austrian entries since 2016, to submit songs to the broadcaster.^[7] ORF also invited all interested artists to submit their songs to the broadcaster between 10 August 2017 and 31 August 2017.^[8] On 5 December 2017, ORF announced during the radio show Ö3-Wecker, aired on Ö3, that they had internally selected Cesár Sampson to represent Austria in Lisbon.^[9] On 27 February 2018, the song "Nobody but You", written by Cesár Sampson himself together with members of the songwriting team Symphonix International, Borislav Milanov, Sebastian Arman, Joacim Persson and Johan Alkenäs was announced as the Austrian entry for the contest. Milanov, Arman and Persson had previously been involved in the composition of a number of songs for Bulgaria at Eurovision, notably Poli Genova's Eurovision 2016 entry "If Love Was a Crime" and Kristian Kostov's Eurovision 2017 entry "Beautiful Mess".^[10] The presentation of the song took place on 9 March 2018 during Ö3-Wecker.^[11]

Cesár Sampson made several appearances across Europe to specifically promote "Nobody but You" as the Austrian Eurovision entry. On 6 April, Sampson performed during the London Eurovision Party, which was held at the Café de Paris venue in London, United Kingdom and hosted by Nicki French and Paddy O’Connell.^[12] Between 8 and 11 April, Sampson took part in promotional activities in Tel Aviv, Israel and performed during the Israel Calling event held at the Rabin Square.^[13] On 14 April, Sampson performed during the Eurovision in Concert event which was held at the AFAS Live venue in Amsterdam, Netherlands and hosted by Cornald Maas and Edsilia Rombley.^[14]

According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "Big Five" (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) are required to qualify from one of two semi-finals in order to compete for the final; the top ten countries from each semi-final progress to the final. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) split up the competing countries into six different pots based on voting patterns from previous contests, with countries with favourable voting histories put into the same pot. On 29 January 2018, a special allocation draw was held which placed each country into one of the two semi-finals, as well as which half of the show they would perform in. Austria was placed into the first semi-final, to be held on 8 May 2018, and was scheduled to perform in the second half of the show.^[15]

Once all the competing songs for the 2018 contest had been released, the running order for the semi-finals was decided by the shows' producers rather than through another draw, so that similar songs were not placed next to each other. Austria was set to perform in position 13, following the entry from Croatia and before the entry from Greece.^[16]

The two semi-finals and the final were broadcast in Austria on ORF eins with commentary by Andi Knoll. The Austrian spokesperson, who announced the top 12-point score awarded by the Austrian jury during the final, was Kati Bellowitsch.

Cesár Sampson took part in technical rehearsals on 30 April and 3 May, followed by dress rehearsals on 7 and 8 May. This included the jury show on 7 May where the professional juries of each country watched and voted on the competing entries.

The Austrian performance featured Cesár Sampson performing on stage in a grey outfit with white spotlights from above. The performance began with Sampson on a raised platform with gold lights from underneath, of which he later landed further down onto the centre stage accompanied by a hologram of the singer.^[17][18][19] Cesár Sampson was joined by five off-stage backing vocalists: Kiko Pereira, Rachelle Jeanty, Ricardo Soler, Sandra Kurzweil and Sunay Balkan.^[20]

At the end of the show, Austria was announced as having finished in the top 10 and subsequently qualifying for the grand final. It was later revealed that Austria placed fourth in the semi-final, receiving a total of 231 points: 115 points from the televoting and 116 points from the juries.^[21]

Shortly after the first semi-final, a winners' press conference was held for the ten qualifying countries. As part of this press conference, the qualifying artists took part in a draw to determine which half of the grand final they would subsequently participate in. This draw was done in the order the countries were announced during the semi-final. Austria was drawn to compete in the first half.^[22] Following this draw, the shows' producers decided upon the running order of the final, as they had done for the semi-finals. Austria was subsequently placed to perform in position 5, following the entry from Lithuania and before the entry from Estonia.

Cesár Sampson once again took part in dress rehearsals on 11 and 12 May before the final, including the jury final where the professional juries cast their final votes before the live show. Cesár Sampson performed a repeat of his semi-final performance during the final on 12 May. Austria placed third in the final, scoring 342 points: 71 points from the televoting and 271 points from the juries.^[23]

Voting during the three shows involved each country awarding two sets of points from 1-8, 10 and 12: one from their professional jury and the other from televoting. Each nation's jury consisted of five music industry professionals who are citizens of the country they represent, with their names published before the contest to ensure transparency. This jury judged each entry based on: vocal capacity; the stage performance; the song's composition and originality; and the overall impression by the act. In addition, no member of a national jury was permitted to be related in any way to any of the competing acts in such a way that they cannot vote impartially and independently. The individual rankings of each jury member as well as the nation's televoting results were released shortly after the grand final.

Below is a breakdown of points awarded to Austria and awarded by Austria in the first semi-final and grand final of the contest, and the breakdown of the jury voting and televoting conducted during the two shows:

The following members comprised the Austrian jury:^[26]

• Nathanaele Koll (jury chairperson) – singer-songwriter, represented Austria in the 2017 contest
• Monika Ballwein [de] – singer, producer, vocal coach, composer
• Hannes Tschürtz – founder and general manager of Ink Music
• Regina Mallinger [de] (Ina Regen) – singer-songwriter
• Florian Cojocaru – songwriter, producer, label-owner

Detailed voting results from Austria (Semi-final 1)^[24]

R/O	Country	Jury							Televote
		M. Ballwein	H. Tschürtz	I. Regen	N. Trent	F. Cojocaru	Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Azerbaijan	14	16	16	17	14	16		7	4
02	Iceland	17	8	12	14	13	15		17
03	Albania	4	4	3	8	6	5	6	10	1
04	Belgium	1	6	1	13	11	4	7	14
05	Czech Republic	5	10	2	2	4	3	8	2	10
06	Lithuania	15	7	5	15	7	9	2	12
07	Israel	2	1	4	1	2	1	12	5	6
08	Belarus	16	18	17	18	17	18		16
09	Estonia	8	2	7	12	9	8	3	8	3
10	Bulgaria	6	9	8	9	3	7	4	6	5
11	Macedonia	18	17	18	16	16	17		18
12	Croatia	12	13	13	7	18	13		9	2
13	Austria
14	Greece	10	15	14	10	12	14		13
15	Finland	13	14	9	11	10	12		11
16	Armenia	3	5	6	3	1	2	10	15
17	Switzerland	11	11	11	6	8	10	1	3	8
18	Ireland	7	3	10	5	5	6	5	1	12
19	Cyprus	9	12	15	4	15	11		4	7

Detailed voting results from Austria (Final)^[25]

R/O	Country	Jury							Televote
		M. Ballwein	H. Tschürtz	I. Regen	N. Trent	F. Cojocaru	Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Ukraine	22	22	22	13	22	22		22
02	Spain	12	16	20	7	17	15		23
03	Slovenia	14	3	3	12	9	6	5	20
04	Lithuania	23	11	14	21	13	16		15
05	Austria
06	Estonia	5	9	7	9	10	9	2	16
07	Norway	15	12	15	17	16	17		17
08	Portugal	16	4	6	14	11	11		25
09	United Kingdom	18	15	19	18	19	20		19
10	Serbia	17	25	25	25	25	24		3	8
11	Germany	6	7	4	1	1	2	10	5	6
12	Albania	3	6	5	8	4	4	7	9	2
13	France	11	18	21	15	18	18		21
14	Czech Republic	7	13	9	4	8	8	3	1	12
15	Denmark	21	24	24	20	24	25		6	5
16	Australia	9	14	16	19	6	14		14
17	Finland	24	19	13	22	20	21		24
18	Bulgaria	13	10	2	10	3	5	6	13
19	Moldova	25	20	23	24	15	23		12
20	Sweden	2	2	8	5	12	3	8	18
21	Hungary	20	21	12	23	14	19		8	3
22	Israel	4	1	1	3	2	1	12	4	7
23	Netherlands	1	23	11	16	21	10	1	11
24	Ireland	10	5	10	6	5	7	4	7	4
25	Cyprus	19	8	18	2	23	12		10	1
26	Italy	8	17	17	11	7	13		2	10