XXL (Macedonian Band)

Macedonia was represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 2000 with the song "" , written by Dragan Karanfilovski, Orče Zafirovski, and Vlado Janevski, and performed by the group XXL. The Macedonian participating broadcaster, Macedonian Radio Television (MRT), organised the national final '' Skopje Fest 2000'' to select its entry for the contest. Twenty-two entries competed in the national final on 19 February 2000 and "" performed by XXL was selected as the winner following the combination of votes from a 21-member jury panel, an audience vote and a public televote.

Macedonia competed in the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 13 May 2000. Performing during the show in position 19, Macedonia placed fifteenth out of the 24 participating countries, scoring 29 points.

Background

Prior to the 2000 contest, Macedonian Radio Television (MRT) had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest once in , having placed nineteenth with the song "" performed by Vlado Janevski. As part of its duties as participating broadcaster, MRT organises the selection of its entry in the Eurovision Song Contest and broadcasts the event in the country. For the 2000 contest, the broadcaster opted to select its entry by using the national final '' Skopje Fest''.

Before Eurovision

Skopje Fest 2000

MRT used the 2000 edition of the '' Skopje Fest'' song contest to select its entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2000. A submission period was opened for interested composers to submit their songs and MRT received 168 submissions at the closing of the deadline. Twenty-two competing songs were selected in early November 1999 by a nine-member committee and their performers were selected by the contest's artistic director Petar Georgievski and executive producer Nikola Dimuševski.

''Skopje Fest'' ''2000'' took place on 19 February 2000 at the Universal Hall in Skopje, hosted by Katerina Krstevska and Dragan B. Kostić and broadcast on MTV 1. The twenty-two entries competed and a combination of public televoting, votes from the audience in the venue and a 21-member jury panel selected the winner. Each member of the jury awarded 100 points to their favourite song, while each member of the audience awarded one point to their favourite song, and the televoting results were converted to points with 200 points awarded to the favourite, 180 points awarded to the second favourite and so on. After all the points were combined, "" performed by XXL was announced as the winner, receiving 1,300 points from the jury, 288 points from the audience, and 180 points from the televote with about 30,000 votes. Toše Proeski won the televote with about 38,000 votes.

At Eurovision

The Eurovision Song Contest 2000 took place at Globe Arena in Stockholm, Sweden, on 13 May 2000. According to Eurovision rules, the participants list included the previous year's winning country, the " Big Four" countries (France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom), the countries with the highest average scores between the and contests, and any countries which had not competed in the previous contest. Macedonia did not compete in the 1999 contest and thus were permitted to participate. On 21 November 1999, an allocation draw was held which determined the running order and Macedonia was set to perform in position 19, following the entry from the and before the entry from . Macedonia finished in fifteenth place with 29 points.

Voting

Below is a breakdown of points awarded to Macedonia and awarded by Macedonia in the contest. The nation awarded its 12 points to in the contest.

MRT, which broadcast the contest in Macedonia, appointed Sandra Todorovska as its spokesperson to announce the results of the Macedonian televote during the show.

References

{{Eurovision Song Contest 2000

2000
Countries in the Eurovision Song Contest 2000
Eurovision