Lithuania in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018

The final of the selection for the very first time was held on Sunday (the day of Lithuania's Independence day; 11 March).

The full list of the participants was revealed on 15 January. Erica Jennings withdrew on 8 January 2018, due to disagreements over the competition's use of a judging panel.[2] However, it was revealed that her song would continue in the competition, being performed by the winner of Lietuvos Balsas season 5, Monika Marija.

The national selection show "Eurovizijos" dainų konkurso nacionalinė atranka began on 6 January 2018. The first four shows were elimination heats where half the acts were eliminated each week.

On 19 February 2018, the Lithuanian broadcaster decided to open an online wildcard round in order to bring back two singers to the competition. Only one vote was allowed per IP, and the voting was open until 21 February 2018.[4][5] Greta Zazza and Ruta Loop were announced as the winners and returned to the competition.[6]

The final took place in Kaunas' Žalgirio Arena. SKAMP, Lithuanian entrants at the Eurovision Song Contest 2001, acted as opening act for the show. Ari Ólafsson and Saara Aalto, who represented Iceland and Finland respectively, performed as guests, singing their respective Eurovision entries. Saara performed a modified version which had 1 verse in Lithuanian.

Lithuania performed sixth in the first semi-final, following the entry from the Czech Republic and preceding the entry from Israel. At the end of the night, Lithuania was one of the ten countries announced as qualifying for the grand final, the first time they had qualified since 2016. Following the show, Ieva Zasimauskaitė joined the other qualifying acts for a press conference in which they drew to see which half of the final they would perform. Lithuania was drawn to perform in the first half of the final, and was drawn to perform in fourth place in the final. It was later revealed that Lithuania placed ninth in the semi-final, receiving a total of 119 points: 62 points from the televoting and 57 points from the juries.

Ieva Zasimauskaitė is a follower of the Hare Krishna movement, which makes her the first Hindu contestant at Eurovision.[9]

Voting during the three shows involved each country awarding two sets of points from 1–8, 10 and 12: one from their professional jury and the other from televoting. Each nation's jury consisted of five music industry professionals who are citizens of the country they represent, with their names published before the contest to ensure transparency. This jury judged each entry based on: vocal capacity; the stage performance; the song's composition and originality; and the overall impression by the act. In addition, no member of a national jury was permitted to be related in any way to any of the competing acts in such a way that they cannot vote impartially and independently. The individual rankings of each jury member as well as the nation's televoting results were released shortly after the grand final.

The following five members comprised the Lithuanian jury: [10]

• Lauras Lučiūnas – Chairperson – music producer
• Jurga Šeduikytė Bareikienė – singer, actress, journalist
• Dovilė Filmanavičiūtė – singer, journalist
• Mindaugas Urbaitis – composer, professor
• Leonas Somovas – composer, singer, music producer

Split voting results from Lithuania (Semi-final 1)
Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		J. Š. Bareikienė	D. Filmanavičiūtė	M. Urbaitis	L. Somov	L. Lučiūnas	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Azerbaijan	17	18	17	18	13	18		11
02	Iceland	7	14	12	16	12	13		15
03	Albania	6	13	5	14	18	10	1	14
04	Belgium	4	6	8	4	1	3	8	3	8
05	Czech Republic	8	7	3	7	10	6	5	4	7
06	Lithuania
07	Israel	11	2	4	3	5	4	7	10	1
08	Belarus	18	12	16	17	11	17		5	6
09	Estonia	3	8	9	11	6	7	4	1	12
10	Bulgaria	10	4	7	8	9	8	3	9	2
11	Macedonia	15	11	15	15	15	16		18
12	Croatia	12	10	10	9	14	11		16
13	Austria	1	1	2	1	7	2	10	2	10
14	Greece	9	15	14	13	8	12		17
15	Finland	14	9	11	12	3	9	2	8	3
16	Armenia	16	16	13	10	17	15		13
17	Switzerland	5	5	6	5	4	5	6	12
18	Ireland	2	3	1	2	2	1	12	7	4
19	Cyprus	13	17	18	6	16	14		6	5

Split voting results from Lithuania (final)
Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		J. Š. Bareikienė	D. Filmanavičiūtė	M. Urbaitis	L. Somov	L. Lučiūnas	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Ukraine	19	24	18	16	19	22		12
02	Spain	8	11	8	14	20	13		24
03	Slovenia	9	10	16	15	8	12		22
04	Lithuania
05	Austria	2	3	3	2	4	1	12	8	3
06	Estonia	13	18	14	13	16	18		1	12
07	Norway	7	16	9	19	18	16		18
08	Portugal	1	6	1	10	10	4	7	21
09	United Kingdom	10	15	11	11	11	15		20
10	Serbia	23	20	21	23	23	24		25
11	Germany	4	7	2	6	13	6	5	9	2
12	Albania	11	12	5	21	24	14		23
13	France	5	2	19	1	1	2	10	6	5
14	Czech Republic	24	14	13	17	15	20		3	8
15	Denmark	21	21	23	24	17	23		2	10
16	Australia	18	13	22	9	12	17		11
17	Finland	22	17	24	20	9	19		19
18	Bulgaria	14	9	17	12	6	11		17
19	Moldova	25	25	25	25	25	25		16
20	Sweden	17	1	6	3	2	3	8	7	4
21	Hungary	20	19	4	22	7	9	2	14
22	Israel	3	4	10	4	3	5	6	10	1
23	Netherlands	15	5	12	5	22	8	3	13
24	Ireland	6	8	7	7	14	7	4	15
25	Cyprus	12	23	20	8	5	10	1	5	6
26	Italy	16	22	15	18	21	21		4	7