In just over one month the 2017 Junior Eurovision Song Contest will take place in Tbilisi, Georgia. It will be the first time that a Eurovision event will be held in the country and follows Mariam Mamadashvili's historic third Junior Eurovision win for Georgia last year. Today we relive the excitement of the 2016 Junior Eurovision Song Contest.
The 2016 Junior Eurovision Song Contest took place in Valletta, Malta. It was the second time in three years that Malta hosted the event and saw 17 countries take to the stage inside Valletta's Mediterranean Conference Centre.
Participants in 2016:
Albania
Armenia
Australia
Belarus
Bulgaria
Cyprus
Georgia
Ireland
Israel
Italy
F.Y.R. Macedonia
Malta
Netherlands
Poland
Russia
Serbia
Ukraine
Montenegro, Slovenia and San Marino withdrew from the contest, while Cyprus, Israel and Poland returned.
Poli Genova, who presented Junior Eurovision the year before and finished fourth in the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest performed during the show as did Jedward from Ireland.
The 2016 contest took place on a Sunday afternoon for the first time which was deemed more suitable for the target audience. The winner was decided by a combination of jury and votes from a professional panel for the first time.
Mariam Mamadashvili from Georgia won the contest with her song Mzeo, leaving Armenia in second and Italy in third place. During the winning reprise Mariam was overcome with emotion but her fellow contestants helped to her carry on.
The 2017 Junior Eurovision Song Contest will take place in Tbilisi, Georgia on Sunday 26th November at 16:00 CET.
