Romania in Own Eurovision Song Contest 50

Romania will participate in the Own Eurovision Song Contest 50. The Romanian entry will have a national selection X Factor Style.

National Selection
Auditions for the national selection will start in November 2017 with mobile auditions taking place in 7 cities from Romania. After this, open auditions in front of producers took place in May in Craiova, Timișoara, Arad, Cluj Napoca, Iași, Galați and Bucharest. Auditions in front of the judges occurred also July in the same seven cities, with two types of audition: auditionees who were successful in a first audition in an audition room, used for the first time, went on to attend an audition in an arena.

Judges & presenters
The judges of the 50th edition National Selection were announced in October 13, 2017 and they are Paula Seling, Claudia Pavel, Adrian Sînă and Ștefan Stan.

Paula Seling is a Romanian singer, radio DJ, and a coach from television music competition franchise X Factor Romania, Season 1.

She has released more than thirteen albums (including three Christmas albums) and over twenty singles, including two top-ten hits in the Romanian Top 100, a minor European hit which entered the charts in Finland and Norway, as well as the UK Singles Chart,and a good position on the worldwide chart of popularity by the name of Starcount, that analysed fans concern about artists from all over the world.

Paula is trilingual and speaks, writes and performs in French, English and Romanian; in addition she performs in Italian. She has also provides the Romanian voices in Cars 2, for Holley Shiftwell. She is an outspoken supporter of personal freedoms, individual rights and human rights.

She represented Romania in the Eurovision Song Contest 2010, together with Ovidiu Cernăuțeanu, with the song "Playing with Fire". They finished third in the final. She then participated in Dansez Pentru Tine (Romanian Dancing with the Stars) where she finished third. From October 2011, Seling was a juror and mentor in the Romanian X Factor. In 2011 she collaborated with Al Bano and Plan D. In 2011/2012 she sang a song called "I'll Show You" with Alexander Rybak. The song, written by Rybak, premiere on 30 May 2012.

Claudia Pavel, alias Claudia Cream, is a Romanian pop, singer and dancer. Pavel has had a string of hit music albums and music singles in Romania and is considered one of Romania's most successful and popular singers of the 2000s. Pavel speaks fluent Romanian, Greek, and English also some Turkish. Claudia Pavel was vying to represent Romania in the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 in Germany with the entry "I Want U to Want Me", in the national final on December 31, 2010 she came in 10th place.

Pavel has also been a member of popular pop group "Candy".

Ștefan Stan is a Romanian blues-soul singer who became known in 2011 after winning the contest show Vocea României, the Romanian version of The Voice.

Although his mother sang in his youth, and Ștefan Stan wanted to become a singer, he has not had the support of any of the parents regarding the pursuit of a career in music. Because of financial difficulties, Ștefan Stan had to start working in construction at the age of sixteen, and later in a factory for air conditioning. He left for the U.S. to work, and encouraged by his friends he sang in various cafés and bars. In 2011 Ștefan joined the pre-selection for Voice of Romania, where he was mentored by Smiley. During the competition he was noted by his voice "baritone, rough and slightly throaty", and on December 26 was named overall winner of the show. For winning Ștefan received $100,000 and a management contract with Universal Music Romania.

Starting September 13, 2013 he became presenter of the TV show Killer Karaoke on Prima TV.

Adrian Sînă better known as Adi Sina is a Romanian singer-songwriter, record producer, radio DJ and entertainer. He is best known for creating, producing and singing in the dance group Akcent and also for writing and producing mainstream hit songs for himself and other international artists. He started out as a disc jockey in the 1990s and then created a group with his fellow musician Ramona Barta. He came to prominence as a member of Akcent with the song "Ultima vară" (The Last Summer) in 1999. His group was joined by Marius Nedelcu, Sorin Brotnei and Mihai Gruia. Together they scored multiple number-one hits both in Romania and throughout Eastern Europe, especially in the mid-2000s. Their albums have been certified multi-Platinum by the Uniunea Naţională a Producătorilor de Fonograme din România and were sold in millions of copies worldwide. Their signature song was "Kylie", released in 2005.

In the early 2010s, Sina decided to release himself in a solo career and co-opted various recording artists on his side. He started his own record label, Premium Artist (formerly known as Sisterhoodlive Records) and he recorded some solo hits, such as "Hold On", "I Can't Live Without You" and "Angel". In 2011 he was also on the judging panel of the Romanian X Factor where he coached the over 25s. In the meantime, he managed to produce and write several number-one and top-ten hits for up-and-rising artists such as boyband Maxim and songstress Lidia Buble. He released a single, entitled "Arde ceva" (Something Burning) which was released in 2013. Songs "Lacrimi curg" and "Tu m-ai dat gata" followed, and his latest release is a collaboration with Cojo, namely "Zile bune, zile rele".

The presenters of the 50th edition are Florena and Andreea Bălan.

Auditions
Audition process was based on the British and American version. First up were "The Producer's Audition", where the producers chose singers to proceed to the second faze which was "The Audition before the Judging panel".

Bootcamp
This edition, each contestant was assigned to one of four categories. The group acts were one category and the others were based on age or gender. The categories were girls, boys, groups, and over 30s. Each judge was assigned to one of the categories, and acted as mentor to the contestants in his or her category, helping to decide song choices, styling, and staging, while also judging contestants from the other categories after each of the live performances. They competed with each other to try to get one of the contestants in their category to win the competition, thus making them the winning judge.

Six-chair challenge
The first part of the boot camp consisted of "The Six-Chair challenge". The categories followed the age-based format Boys, Girls, Over 30s and Groups. Key:
 * – Contestant was immediately eliminated after performance without switch
 * – Contestant was switched out later in the competition and eventually eliminated
 * – Contestant was not switched out and made the final six of their own category