Croatia participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 with the song "Celebrate" written by Boris Đurđević and Marina Mudrinić. The song was performed by Daria. The Croatian broadcaster Croatian Radiotelevision (HRT) organised the national final Dora 2011 to select the Croatian entry for the 2011 contest in Düsseldorf, Germany. Twenty-four artists competed in the national final which consisted of seven shows: four heats, a quarter-final, a semi-final and a final. Contestants were selected to advance in the competition based on the votes of a public televote. Two contestants qualified to compete in the final on 5 March 2011 where the winner was selected over two rounds of voting. In the first round, each finalist performed the three candidate Eurovision songs and one song per finalist advanced to the superfinal following the combination of votes from a three-member judging panel and a public televote. In the superfinal, "Lahor" performed by Daria was selected as the winner based entirely on a public televote. The song was later translated from Croatian to English for the Eurovision Song Contest and was titled "Celebrate".
Croatia was drawn to compete in the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 10 May 2011. Performing during the show in position 13, "Celebrate" was not announced among the top 10 entries of the first semi-final and therefore did not qualify to compete in the final. It was later revealed that Croatia placed fifteenth out of the 19 participating countries in the semi-final with 41 points.
Background
Prior to the 2011 contest, Croatia had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest eighteen times since its first entry in . The nation's best result in the contest was fourth, which it achieved on two occasions: in 1996 with the song "Sveta ljubav" performed by Maja Blagdan and in 1999 with the song "Marija Magdalena" performed by Doris Dragović. Following the introduction of semi-finals for the , Croatia had thus far featured in five finals. In 2010, Croatia failed to qualify to the final with Feminnem and the song "Lako je sve".
The Croatian national broadcaster, Croatian Radiotelevision (HRT), broadcasts the event within Croatia and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. HRT confirmed Croatia's participation in the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest on 23 October 2010. Since 1993, HRT organised the national final Dora in order to select the Croatian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest, a method that was continued for their 2011 participation.
Before Eurovision
Dora 2011
Dora 2011 was the nineteenth edition of the Croatian national selection Dora which selected Croatia's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2011. Under the slogan Idemo na Eurosong! (Let's go to Eurovision!), the competition consisted of seven shows between 22 January and 5 March 2011 all taking place at the Studio 10 of HRT in Zagreb, hosted by Aleksandar Kostadinov, Leona Paraminski and Monika Lelas and broadcast on HRT 1 as well as online via the broadcaster's official website hrt.hr. The final was also streamed online via the official Eurovision Song Contest website eurovision.tv.
Format
Dora 2011 consisted of seven shows: four heats, a quarter-final, a semi-final and a final. In each of the first two heats on 22 and 29 January 2011, twelve contestants performed a song of their choice and seven were eliminated from the competition. An additional seven contestants were eliminated in the third heat on 5 February 2011, while three were eliminated in the fourth heat on 12 February 2011 and the top three proceeded to the quarter-final. Two contestants were eliminated in the quarter-final on 19 February 2011, while one was eliminated in the semi-final on 26 February 2011. The results of the first six shows were determined by public televoting, while in the first five shows, one contestant was saved by a weekly public vote among those eliminated to remain in the competition as a wildcard. The remaining two contestants proceeded to the final on 5 March 2011 where they performed their versions of the three songs bidding for Eurovision and the Croatian entry was selected by votes from the public and a judging panel. Ties in the final were decided in favour of the entry that was awarded the most points from the jury. Public voting included options for telephone and SMS voting.