Alaxian Melody Festival 2

The Alaxian Melody Festival – Summer of Empherias, retroactively known as the 2nd Alaxian Melody Festival, was the second edition of the annual Alaxian Melody Festival. It took place in Vreimer, Empherias in the High Kingdoms of Alaxia. Organised by the International Broadcasting Agency (IBA) and the High Kingdoms Broadcasting Company (HKBC), the contest was held at the Vreimer Stadie de Melodi venue on 21 December 2451. The main presenters were Empheri television presenters Fraser Clayst and Elise Waltz.

Seven countries participated in the competition: The five constituent countries of the High Kingdoms of Alaxia, alongside Grensalbourg and debutant Palakkinen. Each country would give two sets of points– one from a professional jury of musical professionals, and one from an amalgamation of surveys from the public. Musical professionals being used helped steer the contest towards focusing on good vocals, while an element from the public allowed for interaction with the audience at home. Juries would evaluate and judge performances during rehearsals the week prior to the show filming, and the public were able to vote by writing to their local broadcasting system with their favourites over a two month period prior to the show, in which the eligible songs would play on the radio and television.

Each country had a total of 30 points to give out from both the jury and public vote for a total of 60. They could allocate these points according to the weight they saw fit and had no restrictions of minimum or maximum points they could spend on any entry. Countries could not vote for themselves however. Rules for the songs were that they must be completely originally, with songs having to be released after 1 September 2450. Only a maximum of eight people were allowed on stage (although no performance had more than 3), and the song must be between 2 minutes 45 seconds and 4 minutes long, and must fit the orchestra provided. The programme would last an hour and a half with an interval act by Zwartious, the winner of the previous year.

Production
The great success of the first show prompted the format to return. For national day 2451, not much material was created and so in September, they decided to do a second Alaxian Melody Festival to fill air time and celebrate Empheri, and Alaxian, culture more. Flynn Metz remained as producer for the second edition.

Location
Because Empherias had won the previous contest, and Metz was an Empheri producer, and because the edition was to celebrate Empherias' national day, a venue in Empherias was to be chosen. Vreimer was eventually chosen to host due to its Koresan and Vreit cultural ties and closeness to other Alaxian nations.

Fraser Clayst and Elise Waltz were chosen to present again, just like the previous edition. Edwin Likks joined them for some of the show, being a member of the previous edition's winning band Zwartious.

Participating countries
Six countries participated in the contest. These were the High Kingdoms of Alaxia constituent countries of Ahitereira, Empherias, Kiavalar, Koresa, Peryzium; and Grensalbourg.

The winner was Empherias represented by the song "Red Lights", composed by Edwin Likks and Mars Freun, two out of three of the Zwartious band members, who performed the song.

In depth results
The announcement of the results began with the jury and ended with the public vote. The order of points was opposite to the running order of song performances.

Spokespersons
Some countries nominated a spokesperson to read out the points they distributed. Known spokespersons are listed below.


 * Empherias – Elise Waltz

Other countries

 * – the country had relatively good relations with the High Kingdoms and did sometimes participate in High Alaxian projects, similar to Grensalbourg, due to its small size and closeness. The HKBC planned to invite the Palak broadcaster to the event, but no invite went out. Palakkinen did not broadcast the show.

Broadcasts
Each participating broadcaster was required to relay the contest via either a television or radio network. The broadcast was sold to other countries to play on demand, but nobody outside of the participating countries relayed the show live. Broadcasters were able to send commentators to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language and to relay information about the artists and songs to their television viewers. Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below.