Happy Eurovision Season 2023 from all of the Eurovoxx Team to our viewers! Let’s make a little recap about what we know so far!
New year, new place
After Ukraine won the 66th Eurovision Song Contest 2022 with “Stefania”, the country should traditionally host the next edition. But due to the current conflict with Russia, the contest can not be held in Ukraine. Instead, the United Kingdom will host Eurovision 2023.
Martin Österdhal, the Executive Supervisor of the contest, and the EBU, published a shortlist of the remaining cities that could hold the contest in 2023:
- Birmingham
- Glasgow
- Leeds
- Liverpool
- Manchester
- Newcastle
- Sheffield
It’s the BBC and the EBU who will take the final decision of which city can host the Eurovision Song Contest 2023. We should know it in a few weeks.
Participating countries
At this time, 29 countries have confirmed their participation:
- Albania
- Australia
- Austria
- Belgium
- Cyprus
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Finland
- France
- Georgia
- Germany
- Greece
- Iceland
- Israel
- Italy
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Montenegro
- Norway
- Poland
- Romania
- San Marino
- Serbia
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- The Netherlands
- Ukraine
- United Kingdom
The Eurovision 2022 particpating countries that didn’t confirm yet their presence in 2023 are: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Ireland, North Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Portugal and Slovenia.
We know that Russia won’t participate as long as the conflict will continue, and some other countries confirmed that they wont return, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Turkey, Andorra, Luxembourg and Slovakia.
Opening submissions
Some countries started to open submissions for their national selections.
Spain has been the country that gave the earliest news about their national selection. We will get a second Benidorm Fest in February 2023. The song submissions window is open until the 10th of October.
Ukraine will choose its 2023 representative via national final which should be held in Kyiv in December. UA:PBC has opened the song submission window for Eurovision 2023. It will close on October 15th. The songs can be in any language except Russian language.
The Serbian broadcaster announced that a national selection will take place in 2023, and a special committee of music editors will select the competiting songs. Artists have until November 15th to apply.
Concerning Nordic countries, Iceland confirmed its participation as well as the return of its national selection Söngvakeppnin. Applications can be made until October 4th. Here are the dates of the show: February 18th (semi final 1); February 25th (semi final 2); March 4th (final).
In Sweden, Melodifestivalen will return once again. The Final of the biggest national selection will take place on the 12 March. Submissions will close the 16th of September.
Until the 8 September, artists can apply in Switzerland. However there’s no national selection, the Swiss broadcaster wants a contemporary song that has an international appeal and will stand out. The lyrics should have a “strong, clear and easily understood message.”
In Finland, UMK will take place once again in the Northern country. Finnish artists can submit their song until the 6th of December.
Georgia will select its representative from the famous television show “The Voice ”. The song submission window is open until 20th of September.
In Belgium, the broadcaster confirmed that they will hold a national selection. The last one was in 2016, won by Laura Tesoro. We are waiting of more exciting details from VRT.
San Marino opened their song submissions for Una Voce per San Marino late August and already received 80 applications ! Let’s see how many others they can get until the deadline.
Greece’s broadcaster announced the opening of the song submissions windows until the 9th of October. As usual, the artist will be seleted internally.
And to finish with, we got our very first representative, Noa Kirel from Israel!
More and more news is coming soon, so stay tuned!