Citivision Song Festival 1

Citivision Song Festival 1 Discover Something New
Official edition logo
Dates
Final date	5 August 2020
Host
Host city	New York, United States at Madison Square Garden
Participants
Entries	25
Debuting	New York London Juba Stockholm Kyiv Miami Brisbane Toronto Hamburg Zagreb Los Angeles Seoul St Petersburg Johannesburg Lisbon Gwangju Valletta Jakarta Perth Phoenix Vancouver Leeds Sydney San Francisco Singapore
Returning	None
Withdrawing	None
Disqualified	Tokyo
Voting
System	As in ESC 2016
Null points	None
Winner	London "Alone In My Room (Gone)"
Citivision Song Festival
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The Citivision Song Festival 1, or CVSF 1, is the inaugural edition of the Citivision Song Festival. It was held at Madison Square Garden in New York, United States, in early August of 2020.

Twenty-five cities competed in the first edition, containing only one "grand final" show as per the rules set by the International Council for Cities and Music. All cities debuted this edition, as it was the first edition in this competition. All cities are members of the council, as only members of the council are eligible to compete in the contest.

London won the first edition of this contest sending the artist GRACEY with the song Alone In My Room (Gone) to the contest. Vancouver and Valletta came in 2nd and 3rd place, respectively.

Location

Host Draw

As this was the first edition, a draw was held to determine the host. The first fourteen cities that confirmed for the contest were entered. In each round, the names of the cities were drawn, one by one, until only one city was left. That city was eliminated from consideration for hosting. This process occurred until only two cities were left. The host was drawn from those two cities. The table below details this process.

City	Draw Status
London	Eliminated Round 1
Stockholm	Eliminated Round 2
Hamburg	Eliminated Round 3
Los Angeles	Eliminated Round 4
Juba	Eliminated Round 5
Toronto	Eliminated Round 6
Miami	Eliminated Round 7
Brisbane	Eliminated Round 8
Saint Petersburg	Eliminated Round 9
Kyiv	Eliminated Round 10
Zagreb	Eliminated Round 11
Seoul	Eliminated Round 12
Tokyo	Not Selected to Host
New York	Selected to Host

Host City

Main Article: New York

New York City, often called simply New York and abbreviated as NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2019 population of 8,336,817 distributed over about 302.6 square miles (784 km2), New York is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the U.S. state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass. With almost 20 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and approximately 23 million in its combined statistical area, it is one of the world's most populous megacities. New York City has been described as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world, significantly influencing commerce, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, art, fashion, and sports. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.

Situated on one of the world's largest natural harbors, New York City is composed of five boroughs, each of which is a county of the State of New York. The five boroughs—Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island—were consolidated into a single city in 1898. The city and its metropolitan area constitute the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. New York is home to more than 3.2 million residents born outside the United States, the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world as of 2016. As of 2019, the New York metropolitan area is estimated to produce a gross metropolitan product (GMP) of $2.0 trillion. If the New York metropolitan area were a sovereign state, it would have the eighth-largest economy in the world. New York is home to the highest number of billionaires of any city in the world.

Venue Selection

Exterior of Madison Square Garden.

The ICCM received six bids to host the competition from six venues in four cities in the New York Metro Area. Two venues in New York City proper and one in Newark were shortlisted (marked in pink in the chart below). From those three the ICCM selected Madison Square Garden to host the contest (marked in blue in the chart below). The ICCM was quoted saying "For the inaugural edition, we wanted a venue that would both provide the easiest accommodations, and evoke a certain kind of iconography. Madison Square Garden is that venue."

City	Venue	Capacity	Notes
New York City
	Yankee Stadium	47,300	Hosts permanent tenants New York Yankees and New York City FC, as well as concerts for popular musical artists. Would have required the building of a retractable roof.
	Madison Square Garden	20,000	Largest permanently indoor venue out of the bidding venues. Has hosted the Democratic National Conventions of 1976, 1980, and 1992, as well as the Grammy Awards of 1972, 1997, 2003, and 2018.
	Barclays Center	17,000	Opened in 2012. Has hosted the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, as well as multiple stops in popular artists' world tours since its inauguration.
Uniondale	Nassau Coliseum	16,800	The smallest host city out of all of the cities with venue bids. The venue has multiple minor league teams as tenants, as well as being a popular concert venue.
Newark	Prudential Center	17,500	The only venue outside of New York City proper to be shortlisted. Host of the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, and the only venue besides Madison Square Garden to have both a close regional and national rail connection, as well a local subway station nearby. Would have required the least construction out of any bidding venue.
Bridgeport	Webster Bank Arena	10,000	The smallest bidding venue, and the only bidding venue to not have a major sports team as a permanent tenant. The only bidding venue which barely meets minimum capacity for the contest, as per ICCM parameters.

Format

Logo and Theme

Official symbol of this edition.

The logo, theme, and slogan for the first edition were developed by the ICCM and revealed alongside the reveal of the host city draw results. A symbol was created to represent this edition, which the ICCM say was inspired in part by the torch held by the Statue of Liberty. This symbol forms a large part of the official logo of this edition and appears frequently in materials related to this edition of the contest. It will appear often throughout the show. It contains a "flame-like shape" with two "soundwave-like figures" to the right of the flame. The symbol, as well as the rest of the logo, sits behind a dark purple background. In official contest documentation and promotional materials, the flame has been colored with a red-to-purple gradient, although it has been altered throughout the preparations for the contest with gradients representing flags of each of the participating cities.

This edition's slogan is Discover Something New. When discussing the slogan, the ICCM has been quoted saying "This is a new contest, so the idea of the slogan is to introduce the world to these new ideas, this new form of entertainment, and these new songs. We want the world to discover something new."

Allocation Draw

An allocation draw was held on the 24th of July 2020. It divided the participating cities into pots and drew them into either the first half or the second half of the show. The showrunners on the council will then determine the running order of the show. This was done to prevent similar sounds from performing next to each other. If and when the contest exceeds the ICCM's capacity for a single show, the main goal of the allocation draw will be to separate cities that would create a voting bloc if they were all competing in one semi-final. On this day, the host city, New York City, also drew the specific place in the running order it will perform. This was done to prevent bias on the host's part. This is how the pots were split up:

Pot A	Pot B	Pot C	Pot D	Pot E	Pot F
New York Los Angeles Miami Phoenix San Francisco	Hamburg Stockholm Saint Petersburg Kyiv	Tokyo Seoul Gwangju Jakarta Singapore	Brisbane Sydney Perth Johannesburg	Juba Lisbon Valletta Zagreb	Toronto Vancouver London Leeds

The results of the draw were as follows:

First Half	Second Half
Brisbane Gwangju Johannesburg Kyiv Lisbon London Miami Phoenix San Francisco Saint Petersburg Toronto Tokyo Zagreb	Hamburg Jakarta Juba Leeds Los Angeles New York (drew 17 in final) Perth Seoul Singapore Stockholm Sydney Valletta Vancouver

Participation

Twenty-five cities participated in the inaugural edition of this contest. Five of these cities hail from United States, three hail from Australia, and two hail from South Korea, Canada, and United Kingdom each. Any city that has membership at the International Council for Cities and Music can participate in this contest, which makes over 600 cities eligible.

Non-participating Cities

• Melbourne, Australia: Initially confirmed, but withdrew prior to the end of the confirmation period citing a lack of public funds as a reason.
• Tokyo, Japan: Failed to send in an entry to the ICCM for approval before the end of the entry reveal period, and were consequently disqualified from this edition of the competition.

Results

Grand Final

Twenty-five cities participated in this Grand Final. This was the only show to occur this edition.

Draw	City	Act	Song	Place	Points
1	Saint Petersburg	Leningrad	i_$uss	9	123
2	Phoenix	Alec Benjamin	Mind Is A Prison	24	65
3	Toronto	X. ARI	BSMI	20	86
4	Lisbon	She's Not Real	I Never Knew You (Like You Knew Me)	10	120
5	Kyiv	KAZKA	ПЛАКАЛА (Plakala)	5	142
6	Zagreb	Nikola Marjanović	Let's Forgive	25	3
7	Brisbane	Vancouver Sleep Clinic	Killing Me To Love You	7	128
8	Gwangju	Dalsooobin	DIVE	16	102
9	Johannesburg	Nasrene	All Cried Out	22	73
10	Miami	Sofia Carson ft. R3HAB	Miss U More Than U Know	8	128
11	San Francisco	Cathedrals	Just A Game	23	66
12	London	GRACEY	Alone In My Room (Gone)	1	197
13	Valletta	Giorgia Borg	10	3	161
14	Seoul	Jambinai	ONDA	12	110
15	Singapore	Jasmine Sokko	HURT	14	105
16	New York	070 Shake	Guilty Conscience	17	101
17	Jakarta	Diskoria ft. Dian Sastrowardoyo	Serenata Jiwa Lara	21	78
18	Stockholm	Laleh	Det Kommer Bli Bra	19	90
19	Los Angeles	ZZ Ward	Sex & Stardust	15	103
20	Sydney	CXLOE	12 Steps	11	117
21	Juba	Matrix & Futurebound ft. Ayak Thiik	Follow Me	18	99
22	Perth	Troye Sivan	Easy	13	109
23	Hamburg	Zoe Wees	Control	4	157
24	Vancouver	Grimes ft. i_o	Violence	2	188
25	Leeds	Franky	All Of The Boys	6	132

External Links

• Official YouTube Channel
• Inaugural Forum Post