Carmelle Collado won Asia’s first Eurovision Song Contest, taking the Philippines’ entry Sobra-Sobra to victory in Bangkok on Saturday night, in the first regional edition of the contest held outside Europe.
Eleven countries competed at the One Bangkok Forum in central Bangkok, and the show lasted two and a half hours, including advertising.
The winner, who plays under the sole name Carmelle, finished with 211 points, 41 ahead of hosts Thailand and third-placed Vietnam. She received the highest number of votes from national juries and public voting.
Carmelle, 19, grew up beside the railroad tracks in the Bicol region of southeastern Luzon and has been competing in televised talent competitions since she was 12 years old.
Sobra-Sobra mixes pop and rap, is backed by traditional Filipino instruments, kubing and kulintang, and is sung in Tagalog and English.
After her victory, Carmelle said her song celebrated women’s empowerment and was meant to be “a tribute to all Filipino women.”
“I made history because it was the first time,” she told the Associated Press. “It’s a very big responsibility for me because this is a global stage, so thank you to everyone who voted for me.”
“It’s about how strong, independent and unapologetic the Philippines is,” she told the Guardian before the final. “That describes me – not just me, but of course all Filipinos.”
The show opened with a routine celebrating the host country, in which Muay Thai fighters shared the stage with drag performers on street food carts. The 11 acts then took place in tuk-tuks, each carrying their national flag.
Vietnamese Tóc Tiên, a Vietnamese star for more than 20 years, performed first, among dancers dressed as lotus leaves. Representing Thailand were Mang x Daou, a duo assembled for the competition in the host country who performed a duet staged as a musical number.
Nepal’s Pratik Himal Rai gave one of the most conventional Eurovision performances of the evening with Ananta Maya, a rock ballad staged with images of fire and a large heart-shaped structure behind him.
He ended by launching an appeal for support for his country which, according to him, “is going through a very difficult situation”. More than 1,500 people were killed and more than 5,000 were missing after an avalanche of rock and ice near the Chinese border triggered catastrophic flash floods in August.
The Bangladesh Beatmosphere, originally a nine-member a cappella and beatbox group, sang without a single instrument. Three of their members were excluded from the final due to a rule limiting each act to six performers on stage.
Nyendra from Bhutan sang dressed in gho, his country’s national male costume, against a backdrop of Himalayan peaks. The Mongolian Beck performed in a reinterpreted deel, also a national costume.
Half of the outcome was decided before the show started. The 11 national juries voted Friday evening during a dress rehearsal and placed the Philippines on top with 93 points, ahead of Vietnam and Malaysia.
The other half came from viewers around the world, who could vote online but not for their own country, and who received eight free votes each and the option to purchase 10 more.
Participant Thinla from Laos was unable to hear her own music during her performance, and her dress rehearsal was broadcast after all live performances had finished. She finished fifth, with the third highest public score of the evening.
Carmelle does not receive any prize money but is presented with a trophy presented by Dara, the Bulgarian singer who won this year’s European competition and will perform at Eurovision 2027 in Burgas.
Organizers said the right to organize future editions would not automatically go to the winner, on the grounds that small countries lack infrastructure.
Some of the clearest echoes of Eurovision camp traditions came from those who announced the votes.
The South Korean jury’s arguments were read by Jo Kwon, a veteran pop star who played Adam in the Korean production of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and the title role in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie.
The Philippines broadcasts were read by Vice Ganda, a gay comedian who is one of the biggest stars on Philippine television.
Meanwhile, the guest artist was Thai singer Jeff Satur, who reached a wider Asian audience through KinnPorsche, a 2022 series in the same-sex male romantic drama genre that has a large audience across Asia.
The organizers hope that the Bangkok show will be the first in a long series of regional editions. Executive producer Assaf Blecher said 16 or 17 territories had expressed interest in competing next year, including China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
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