In the first round of voting, a public televote exclusively selected the top four entries to advance to the competition's second round—the Gold Final.

[2] The broadcaster has traditionally organised the national final Melodi Grand Prix, which has selected the Norwegian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest in all but one of their participation.

All shows were hosted by Per Sundnes and Anne Rimmen and televised on NRK1 as well as streamed online at NRK's official website nrk.no.

Two wildcards were also awarded to the two acts that received the most votes out of the bottom three songs in the semi-finals to proceed to the Last Chance round.

In addition to the public call for submissions, NRK reserved the right to directly invite certain artists and composers to compete.

[2][6] 700 submissions were received at the close of the deadline and 21 songs were selected for the competition by Melodi Grand Prix music producer Per Sundnes and choreographer Mattias Carlsson.

[7] Nine of the competing acts and songs were revealed on 22 November 2010 during a press conference at the Hard Rock Café in Oslo, presented by Per Sundnes, while the remaining twelve acts and songs were revealed on 29 November 2010 during another press conference at the Hard Rock Café in Oslo and presented by Sundnes.

[13] In addition to the performances of the competing entries, the interval act featured the lead singer of 2005 Norwegian Eurovision entrant Wig Wam, Åge Sten Nielsen, performing a rendition of his entry "In My Dreams" together with Norwegian 2008 entrant Maria Haukaas Mittet.

[15] In addition to the performances of the competing entries, the show was opened with the Eurovision 2010 winning entry "Satellite" being performed by Bjørn Johan Muri, Nadia Hasnaoui and several past Norwegian Eurovision entrants: Benedicte Adrian (1984), Tor Endresen (1997), Åge Sten Nielsen (2005), Guri Schanke (2007) and Maria Haukaas Mittet (2008), while the interval act featured 2010 Norwegian Eurovision entrant Didrik Solli-Tangen performing his entry "My Heart Is Yours" together with the Oslo Fagottkor.

[19] The video, which was directed by Frederic Esnault and presented by Big City Music, was released to the public on 19 April.

The Norwegian performance was choreographed by Mattias Carlsson who also created the flashmob dance for the final of the 2010 contest in Oslo.

[25][26] The five backing vocalists on stage with Stella Mwangi were: May Kristin Kaspersen, Øyvind Boye Løvold, Samantha Gurah, Suzanne Sumbundu and Ulrik Engdahl.

[27] At the end of the show, Norway was not announced among the top 10 entries in the first semi-final and therefore failed to qualify to compete in the final.

The jury consisted of five music industry professionals who were citizens of the country they represent, with their names published before the contest to ensure transparency.

This jury was asked to judge each contestant based on: vocal capacity; the stage performance; the song's composition and originality; and the overall impression by the act.