From the country that brought us Kylie and Danni MInogue , Russel Crowe and Dame Enda the search has begun to find Australia’s first representative for the Asia-Pacific Our Sound competition. Could this be the new Melodifestivalen? (lord knows after this years debacle Lithuania had a more interesting final)

Pretty much the same rules apply, song can be no more than 3 minutes, it cannot have been previously released, the entrant has to be over 18. Only citizens and permanent residents of Australia are eligible to participate in the contests. Exceptions will need the written approval of the contest organisers.

The entry will be reviewed by a jury comprising representatives of Asiavision, the music industry and the Australian Public. The jury will select a shortlist of about 3 to 10 of the most outstanding songs submitted. The backing track does not need to be live but you do need to make a video of some sorts. I’m thinking they are going for a Web Joker in Melodifestivalen or the first round of web voting in Spain feature. Entries must be in before August 28th.

Australia will have the opportunity to vote for their favourite song from this shortlist over a two week voting period in September. The winner of this vote will represent Australia at Our Sound 2010 in Mumbai this November – so if your song is shortlisted, then this will be your opportunity to campaign directly to the public for their support!

Some other details on the actual competition have emerged as well.  The voting system is the same as the Eurovision, 1-8 points then 10 and 12.

2 new twists however are that the act cannot be more than 5 people opposed to 6 in Eurovision and people can vote for their own country this time round. Should be interesting, imagine if they brought that over to the Eurovision. “Greece gives 12 points to Greece and 10 points to Cyprus!”, completely fair

It has been confirmed that Our Sound – The Asia-Pacific Song Contest will take place this November in Mumbai, India. The Show will take place in the Andheri Sports Complex, which can hold up to 20,000 people, on November 26th and 28th.

The first show is when all the songs will be preformed while the second show is when the results will be announced.

14 countries have confirmed their entry for the first edition of the contest. They are the following:

• Australia
• Bangladesh
• Cambodai
• China
• Hong Kong
• India
• Indonesia
• Malaysia
• New Zealand
• Philippines
• Singapore
• Taiwan
• Thailand
• Vietnam

The voting will follow the style used at the Eurovision (1-8, 10 and 12). There will be no juries as the voting will be by televote. I am sure there will be back-up juries though.

It is up to each country to organise its own National Selection. Some will be internal others will be national finals.

The show will be streamed on the Our Sound website as I doubt it will be shown on any European Network!

It should be interesting to see how this works out for the Asian-Pacific region. Will there be accusations of Neighbourhood voting? (China – Hong Kong, Australia – New Zealand) It will be fun also!

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