Some other things to note about the contest:
Europeans can vote with a VPN.
There are a few really big stars, but there are a lot of really small people participating. And many small acts are winning over the big stars which shows there's a lot of balance. It's nice not to have the stars dominate everything.
The First Heat was really good and then everything got boring because they had some heats full of nothing but ballads and/or country music. There was a lack of genre balance in some of the later heats.
It feels like the Europeans set up the staging for the first heat, you can tell looking at some of them, and then it's like they left because they thought they could trust the Americans with the staging. Spoiler alert: they couldn't. The staging is so boring for most of them. You can tell the difference by comparing the entries from Heat 1 with the entries from Heat 5. BIG difference.
The postcards were really cool. They gave you fun facts about the states and more info about the artist, who they were, where they lived, their story, etc.
During the intermission, they quizzed some of the artists on small state facts. That was cute.
It’s weird how they always cut to the hosts afterward and they’re like: Every song is SOOO Good! You can tell some of them are just being polite. Typical American. Meanwhile, in Eurovision, you can hear Graham Norton ripping on certain entries. Not here.
The show actually listens to everyone’s complaints. Everyone on the internet complained so much about how confusing the rules were, the next heat they explained everything. Everyone complained about all the commercials, so they balanced it out more next time. Everyone complained about all the white men advancing? In heat 5 the Jury picked a girl. People complained about New Boot Goofin failing, so they brought him back, making a special wildcard spot for him.
Two failed acts can return, and it must be done by streaming their music on Spotify. Yes, I think that is a dumb system, but if it brings cool entries back, I'm not complaining.
Everyone has 10 people on stage. Yes, it feels really crowded. No, I don’t think they’re going to stop.
The performances in the Semis are different from the Heats. Which I think is really nice because you don't have the exact same performance and it makes you actually want to watch both the semis and the finals.