The Nedas' and Rob's Earthvision Song Contest 04, often referred as NRESC 04, was the fourth edition of Nedas' and Rob's Earthvision Song Contest. The edition took place in Japan, following lqvr's win with Japan in South Korea, with "Nobody" by Mitski. The contest was held at Nippon Gaishi Hall, the city's general gymnasium; the show consisted of two semi-finals on 8 and 15 January, and the final originally on 22 January 2022, but was delayed to the 28th due to unexpected events to the executive directors. A day before the 28th, it was announced the final had been moved to 5 February 2022.

Thirty-six countries took part in the contest, a decrease from 39 countries in the previous edition.

Location

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City

Nagoya (名古屋市) is the largest city in the Chūbu region, the fourth-most populous city and third most populous urban area in Japan, with a population of 2.3 million in 2020. Located on the Pacific coast on central Honshu, it is the capital and the most populous city of Aichi Prefecture, and is one of Japan's major ports along with those of Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, Yokohama, and Chiba. The principal city of the Chūkyō metropolitan area, which is the third-most populous metropolitan area in Japan with a population of 10.11 million in 2020. Nagoya was announced as the host city on the 22nd of October.

Venue

Nippon Gaishi Hall is an indoor sports arena located in Nagoya, Japan. The capacity of the arena is 10,000 people, and the venue hosted some of the group games for the 2006 and 2010 editions of the official Women's Volleyball World Championship.

Bidding phase and host city selection

After Japan won the third contest, information surrounding potential venues was slowly gathered in order to help decide on an appropriate venue. Over the month of October, an official presentation of possible venues was developed, shortlisting 7 venues in 6 Japanese cities.

The cities Chiba, Fukuoka, Nagoya, Saitama, Sendai, and the capital Tokyo, were revealed as the official candidates for hosting the contest. Tokyo had two bids, the Nippon Budokan as well as the Tokyo Dome. Each city, and its venue, were assessed in a variety of capacities in order to determine which would be deemed as a viable host. Some of the criteria for assessment included:

• The size of the venue, ideally approximately 10,000 capacity
• In a relatively established city, that people know and are familiar with
• The difficulty in construction of a virtual venue

Format

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Presenters

Hatsune Miku, Mitski and Rina Sawayama are set to be the presenters of the show. Mitski was also the Japanese entrant in the previous edition when she won. The hosts were revealed during the allocation draw on 28 November 2021.

Visual design

The contest's slogan, "Prevail", was unveiled on 20 November 2021, while the official logo and branding were revealed in "The NRESC Event" on 28 November 2021. Designed by Rob, it consists of layered shards designed to resemble a dragon, inspired by Japanese culture.

Entries

According to the rules:

• The act(s) must have a feasible connection to the country, e.g. born there, have roots there, currently live there. Therefore, they should have at least 25% connection to the chosen country (this includes both solo artists and bands).
• Songs must be approved by a 5 member song council before their release.
• Originality for songs is highly recommended, but not required. Acts that are ‘extremely unoriginal’ are most likely to get denied by the song council team (e.g. LYRA, Dreamcatcher, MARUV, OONAGH, Betta Lemme, Faouzia etc.).
• Mainstream songs are not allowed and therefore, the maximum view limit for all entries must be 120 million from the time you sent it for approval, unless if you are using some of the borrowing rules, where the view count is considerably less. Artists that are deemed ‘world chart’ currently, for example BTS, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift and Katy Perry, will not be approved.
• Songs must be released after the 1st of January 2015.
• The maximum song length is 4:30, the minimum is 1:30. A few seconds after the maximum limit is permitted, as long it's not around 15 seconds.

More entry rules are available to find here.

Semi final allocation draw

Similar to the previous two editions, the thirty-two participating semi-finalists were randomly allocated to a semi-final and one of its halves. The draw was unveiled on 28 November 2021, as well as the halves of the Grand Final the "Big 6" would perform in and what semi-final they would vote in. Nevertheless, during the event, REOL performed her song "The Sixth Sense", filmed at a Japanese temple.

The thirty-two semi-finalists were allocated into five pots, based on their relationships. Drawing from different pots helps in reducing the chance of so-called neighbour voting and increasing suspense in the semi-finals. Each time a country was drawn from the pot, its semi-final and half of the semi-final was determined.

The five pots were the following: