Eurovision 2023: What We Know So Far (as of March)

As usual, I'll first go through the general facts, and then go into each country and what news, if any, I could find regarding them. Most of the irrelevant details have been truncated, and you can read about them on my previous blogs.

Eurovision Song Contest 2023

Host Country: United Kingdom

The EBU has confirmed that Ukraine, the winner of Eurovision 2022, cannot fulfil required safety standards for hosting the contest, thus the runner-up, being the United Kingdom, will be hosting the contest instead, with the BBC taking over most of the hosting operations and UA:PBC, the Ukrainian broadcaster, will work with the BBC to implement Ukrainian elements in the live show. The two broadcasters will cooperate on: 1. design and music, 2. use of Ukrainian locations in postcards and show programming, 3. use of Ukrainian cultural elements, and 4. selection of hosts.

Host City: Liverpool (Liverpool Arena / M&S Bank Arena)

On 7/10, Liverpool was announced as the host city for the 2023 contest. The arena will be the M&S Bank Arena, which for Eurovision purposes will simply be known as the Liverpool Arena. It has a capacity of about 11000, and is situated right next to the river Mersey.

Hosts: Julia Sanina, Graham Norton, Hannah Waddingham, Alesha Dixon

Alesha Dixon is a British TV presenter and pop star, known especially for her 2008 hit "The Boy Does Nothing", and more recently as a judge on Britain's Got Talent. Hannah Waddingham is a British actress, most well-known for her role in Game of Thrones as the nun who said "shame", as well as Rebecca Welton in Ted Lasso.

Graham Norton is the resident grand final commentator for the BBC, and is actually of Irish origin. He took over from Terry Wogan in the early 2000s, and has also hosted several British national finals. Earlier in the season he said that he did not want to give up commentating, which many took as a sign of him not hosting. However, it was also revealed on the 22nd that he will indeed still commentate on the grand final, but will be alternating the duty with Mel Giedroyc, who had previously been the 2018 UK spokesperson and one of the BBC semi-final commentators in 2016 and 2017. Like with the commentary, Norton will not appear in the semi-finals. Hannah Waddingham revealed on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon that she, alongside Norton, will be the ones presenting the voting sequence in the grand final.

Julia (pronounced "Yuliya") Sanina is the lead singer of the group The Hardkiss, which took part in Vidbir, the Ukrainian selection, in 2016 and came second after Jamala. Back in late January, she had appeared in a video played at the Allocation Draw featuring Eurovision-adjacent Ukrainians, which led fans to speculate on The Hardkiss' possible involvement in Eurovision 2023. Some also noted that The Hardkiss' latest tour will be ending in April, right before Eurovision. Sure enough, Sanina was announced as one of the hosts for Eurovision 2023, and is the only one from Ukraine.

Previously many had expected Timur Mirošnyčenko, the resident UA:PBC commentator and 2017 green room host, to be one of the hosts; however he will only take up his usual commentating duties, except for appearing occasionally in VT inserts during the show. For the opening ceremony however, he will be one of the hosts, the other being Liverpudlian broadcaster Sam Quek.

The semi-final commentary for the BBC will be taken up by Rylan Clark and Scott Mills as usual.

Show Dates: 9 May (SF1), 11 May (SF2), 13 May (Grand Final)

Slogan & Theming: United By Music

The theme art features four main colours: dark blue, light blue, yellow, and pink/red, with the light and yellow referencing Ukraine's national flag and the dark blue and red representing the UK. This visual identity was devised jointly by UK agency Superunion and Ukrainian creative studio Starlight Creative.

The theming also features many concentric hearts in its design, named an ECG (electrocardiogram) effect, to "illustrate the collective beating heart of all Eurovision contestants and viewers alike". The typeface is named "Penny Lane", which was the standard typeface used on street name signs in 20th century Liverpool.

Stage Design:

Worth noting that the standing fan area in the middle has returned, after last appearing on the 2019 stage. The stage itself occupies over 450 m², while the moving LED panels take up 220 m². Over 700 video tiles will be integrated into the floor and more than 1500m of LED lights. Stage construction began on 27/3, after the conclusion of the Gymnastics British Championships, which took place in the M&S Bank Arena.

Rule Changes: voting changes, no more journalists at pre-jury-show rehearsals, postcards back to in-person

Backing vocals are still permitted to be put on the backing track rather than having live singers provide said vocals, although the latter is still permitted as always. Lead vocals must still be sung live, as in the previous two contests. That said, the EBU has this time specified that it is forbidden to lip sync to vocals.

The EBU also announced voting changes, those being the exclusion of juries from semi-finals, and inclusion of a rest-of-the-world (ROTW) vote in both the semi-finals and final, amounting to the same number of points as the televote of one participating country. The list of eligible voting countries will be released by the EBU in due course.

On 2/2, it was posted on the Eurovision Media Centre that even accredited journalists may no longer get to watch the first and second rehearsals for each country. The first time a journalist can watch rehearsals will be the first Dress Rehearsal, that is to say the pre-show before the Jury Show. The EBU explains that this is to allow artists to rehearse in private and for the production to perfect the performance before it is seen in full at the Jury Show. Nonetheless, excerpts from these initial rehearsals will still be uploaded to the Eurovision digital channels (including TikTok) as well as that of various broadcasters.

On the 18th, Joker Out from Slovenia filmed their postcard, during which RTVSLO revealed that the production company for the 40-second-long postcards wanted segments to be shot in the participants' home countries. Joker Out, for instance, shot their segment on the roof of the RTVSLO building, featuring 4 pinball machines. However, it was also agreed earlier by the BBC and UA:PBC that Ukrainian locations would be used in postcards. How these two may be combined is as yet unknown. The postcards will be produced by Windfall Films in conjunction with a Ukrainian company named 23/32.

Tickets: went on sale on the 7th via Ticketmaster UK

As usual, there were nine sets of tickets available for purchase: Second Dress Rehearsal (aka Jury Show), Third Dress Rehearsal (aka Family Show), and the actual (semi-)final. Tickets ranged from £30-£280 for the rehearsals, £90 to £290 for the semis, and £160-£380 for the final. One was able to purchase at most 4 tickets in one order for the three main televised shows, and 6 tickets per order for the dress rehearsals. Note that the jury show takes place exactly 24 hours before the main show, at 20:00 GMT or 21:00 CET, while the family show takes place 6.5 hours before for the semis and 7 for the final.

The M&S Bank Arena is on the smaller side in terms of recent Eurovision arenas, which did prove to make ticket procurement more difficult than in other years, as it had been announced that all tickets were sold out just *1.5 hours* after the start of the sale. There had also been significant confusion due to the sale being held on Ticketmaster, as Eurovision 2023 was not listed as an upcoming event even hours before the actual sale took place, and several users reported inexplicably being kicked out of the queue. The UK government also announced that almost 3000 tickets will be made available at reduced cost (specifically £20) for displaced Ukrainians, although the tickets being spread across all nine shows means that the material impact was not very significant.

On 29/3, the UK government opened applications for the ballot of Eurovision tickets for displaced Ukrainians. Individuals on the Homes For Ukraine, Ukraine Extension Scheme, and Ukraine Family Scheme are eligible to apply. The ballot closes at 16:00 GMT on the 6th, after which successful applicants will be able to purchase up to two tickets for £20 each.

Interval Acts: Kalush Orchestra performance, Ukrainian artists

Herman Nenov, creative director for ESC2023 from UA:PBC says that an "unprecedented number" of Ukrainian artists will appear in Liverpool, who will mostly be Eurovision artists but 'several others' will also appear. These artists may not necessarily sing however. April is when more details regarding interval acts will be revealed, according to the BBC.

Kalush Orchestra confirmed in a press conference on the 18th that they will indeed be performing in Liverpool, as all previous winners do. Kateryna from Go_A also confirmed attendance of ESC2023, although it is not yet known whether Go_A will perform in Liverpool.

After The Hardkiss' main singer, Julia Sanina, was announced as one of the Eurovision 2023 hosts, it seemed likely that the group would perform as one of the interval acts, but this was later denied by Julia Sanina, who said in an interview with MUZVAR that she will not sing in any of the live shows.

Allocation Draw: 31st January, St. George's Hall, Liverpool

Was hosted by Rylan (BBC semi-final commentator) and AJ Odudu (UK 2022 spokesperson).

As usual, the host city insignia was handed over from the previous host city mayor, in this case Stefano Lo Russo (the Turin mayor), to Joanne Anderson, the mayor of Liverpool. Young people from a local Liverpool school and members of the Ukrainian community who have settled in Liverpool since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine also assisted in the draw by holding the Big 5 + Ukraine cards while Rylan shuffled and drew the halves.

Germany, France and Italy will vote in the first semi-final, while Spain, the UK, and Ukraine will vote in the second semi-final. The 31 non-automatic-finalists were also drawn into one of the two semi-finals via a 15-16 split. Consensus among fans at the moment is that the first semi-final is far stronger than the second. Norway, Sweden and Finland were all drawn into the first semi, while Cyprus and Greece were both drawn into the second semi.

Head Of Delegation Meeting: 13th March, Liverpool

Marks the deadline for all participating broadcasters to submit their songs and staging plans, although it should be noted that the song did not yet have to be publicized on this date. During the meeting, the running order slots for both the UK and Ukraine were drawn, with one HOD doing the honours for the other country. After the draw, it was revealed that Tvorchi will be performing in the 19th position, while Mae Muller will be closing the show, at 26th. The heads of delegation also got a tour around the M&S Bank Arena, including the backstage areas and dressing rooms, ahead of the stage construction.

It was also announced during this meeting that Ana Maria Bordas, part of the Spanish delegation for RTVE and also the Steering Group for Junior Eurovision, has been selected to be in the (adult) Eurovision Reference Group for a term of two years.

Budget: ~12 million pounds (or just under 14 million euros)

Of which £2 million come from Liverpool City Council, and the rest are covered by the BBC, the EBU and the British government.

Administrative Directors: Rachel Ashdown, Martin Green, Andrew Cartmell, Lee Smithurst, Twan van de Nieuwehuizen, James O'Brien; Nikki Parsons, Richard Valentine and Ollie Bartlett, Dan Shipton, Kojo Samuel, Julio Himede, Robert Edwards, Tim Routledge

You may find detailed descriptions of these directors either on my blog post from December, or just on the Eurovision website.

Pre-parties:

• Barcelona Eurovision Party (23rd - 25th March, Sant Jordi Club, Barcelona, Spain)

Hosted by Sharonne, Alex Marteen, and Giuseppe Di Bella. Featured names such as Blanca Paloma, Diljá, Gustaph, Iru Khechanovi, Joker Out, Mae Muller, Mimicat, Monika Linkyte, Pasha Parfeni, Piqued Jacks, Sudden Lights, Tvorchi, and Wild Youth. Teya and Salena were meant to appear as well, however they revealed on Instagram that by the time of the preparty, they had already been ill for a week, so they were not able to appear. Non-2023 acts included Barei, Beth, Destiny, Efendi, Eva Santamaria (Spain 1993), Megara (BF 2023), Poli Genova, Ronela Hajati, Rosa Lopez, Ruslana, Susanne Georgi, Suzy, and WRS. The performances were livestreamed on betevé, a Catalan-language broadcaster in Barcelona.

• Polish Eurovision Party (1st April, Praga Centrum, Warsaw, Poland)

Was hosted by Poli Genova (Bulgaria 2011, 2016) and Konrad Zemlik. Featured several 2023 acts, such as Alika, Albina & Familja Kelmendi, Diljá, Joker Out, Let 3, Mae Muller, Monika Linkytė, Pasha Parfeni, Piqued Jacks, Reiley, Sudden Lights, The Busker, Vesna, and Wild Youth. Guest performers included Anne-Marie David (Luxembourg 1973), Basia Janyga, Eye Cue, Felivers, Filip Baloš, Filip Sterniuk, Gromme, Inis Neziri, Jamala, Justyna Dobroć, Kasia Nova, Melovin, Ochman, Oceana, Poli Genova, Viki Gabor, Scarlett, Senhit, Slavko, and Suzy.

• Israel Calling 2023 (3rd April, Hangar 11, Tel Aviv, Israel)

To be hosted by Dafna Dekel (Israel 1992) and Sigal Shachmon (ESC1999 host). Confirmed names include Albina & Familja Kelmendi, Alika, Blanca Paloma, Blanka, Iru, Joker Out, Let 3, Monika Linkytė, Reiley, Sudden Lights, The Busker, TuralTuranX, Vesna, and Wild Youth. Prior to the main event, artists will be taken on a tour around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

• PrePartyES (7th - 8th April, Sala La Riviera, Madrid, Spain)

50 acts have been promised and around 16 hours of concerts. Confirmed names so far include Alessandra, Alika, Blanca Paloma (both nights), Blanka, Joker Out, Theodor Andrei, Gustaph, Iru Khechanovi, *Käärijä*, La Zarra, Let 3, Lord Of The Lost (remotely), *Loreen*, Luke Black, Mae Muller, Mia Nicolai & Dion Cooper, Mimicat, Monika Linkytė, Pasha Parfeni, Piqued Jacks, Reiley, Remo Forrer, Sudden Lights, Teya & Salena, The Busker, Vesna, Voyager, Wild Youth, Claudia Pascoal, D'Nash, Diodato, Ivi Adamou, Kaliopi, Karina (Spain 1971), Konstrakta, Poli Genova, Soleá, as well as Alfred Garcia, Aritz Aren, E'Femme, Famous, Fusa Nocta, Jose Otero, Karmento, Megara, Meler, Rakky Ripper, Sofia Martin, Siderland, Twin Melody, and Vicco from Benidorm Fest 2023. The 7th is to be hosted by Soraya, who herself will also sing. The overall masters of ceremonies will be Ruslana, SuRie, and Victor Escudero, the three of which will host both nights.

• Eurovision in Concert (15th April, AFAS Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands)

Per tradition, a mix of old Eurovision acts and upcoming 2023 acts are expected. Confirmed 2023 acts so far include Alessandra, Alika, Albina & Familja Kelmendi, Blanca Paloma, Blanka, Diljá, Gustaph, Joker Out, *Käärijä*, La Zarra, Lord Of The Lost, *Loreen*, Mae Muller, Mia Nicolai & Dion Cooper, Monika Linkytė, Pasha Parfeni, Piqued Jacks, Remo Forrer, Sudden Lights, Teya & Salena, The Busker, Theodor Andrei, TuralTuranX, Tvorchi, Vesna, Voyager, and Wild Youth. Special guests include Katrina (UK 1997). To be hosted by Cornald Maas and Hila Noorzai.

• London Eurovision Party (16th April, HERE at Outernet, London, United Kingdom)

Tickets went on sale on the 5th and sold out on the 9th. Confirmed names so far include Alessandra, Alika, Blanca Paloma, Blanka, Diljá, Joker Out, *Käärijä*, La Zarra, Let 3, *Loreen*, Luke Black, Mae Muller, Mimicat, Pasha Parfeni, Piqued Jacks, Teya & Salena, The Busker, Theodor Andrei, TuralTuranX, Tvorchi, Vesna, Voyager, Wild Youth, KEiiNO, Senhit, and Tamara Todevska.

Additional Events: EuroFest, Douze Points!, Eurovisioncast, Baileys sponsorship, The Greatest Show On Earth, And The Winner Isn't, Eurovision cruises, Concert Square, Eurovision Book Contest, SGH Eurovision Extravaganza, Eurovision screening across UK and in cinemas, ESC2023 CD & vinyl, various preview shows

Culture Liverpool has organized the EuroFestival, which will showcase UK and Ukrainian music as well as Ukrainian culture. 24 commissions will be presented, 19 of which are British-Ukrainian collaborations. Some of the commissions include Soloveiko Songbirds, The Blue And Yellow Submarine Parade, English National Opera Does Eurovision, Izyum To Liverpool, and Rave Ukraine. Jamala will also take part in the festival, debuting a new album named "QIRIM" accompanied by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. The festival will run from the 1st to 14th of May.

"Douze Points!" is a show taking place on the 12th of May at 7:30pm UK time where the Philharmonic Orchestra Liverpool will perform a series of Eurovision hits, ranging from ABBA's Waterloo to Kalush Orchestra's Stefania. Tickets to attend the performance from the orchestra will range from £35 to £75. The show will be hosted by Owain Wyn Evans.

Eurovisioncast is a BBC podcast which features Måns Zelmerlöw, Nina Warhurst, Daniel Rosney and Ngunan Adamu. The podcast will "bring the inside scoop on plans and unique insights on the competition", and will also have former participants, 2023 participants and "celebrity fans" as guests. The weekly podcast launched on 31/1 and is available on BBC Sounds, BBC Radio 5 and BBC Radio Merseyside. The podcast came under heavy criticism in late March, as the hosts posed a question to guests asking about their opinion on the worst Eurovision song this year, which goes against the Eurovision spirit of coming together united by music.

Free Baileys (one might even say, Alcohol Is Free) for everyone in the green room and press centre. Hooray! If previous sponsors are any indication, then there will likely be a special Eurovision line of Baileys' products coming out soon as well. Not too many details available at this time.

"The Greatest Show On Earth" and "And The Winner Isn't" are two documentaries that will be produced for BBC One and BBC iPlayer, and will be broadcast in May. The former celebrates 25 years since the UK's last Eurovision hosting as well as featuring a sneak peek into this year's production backstage, while the latter delves into Eurovision contestants which did not win the contest, but have found great success afterwards in the music industry.

Mersey Ferries plans to offer five types of Eurovision-themed cruises leading up to the contest, as well as one cruise on the night of the grand final for live viewing of the show. The other cruises will offer a range of activities such as dance parties and live music. The first such cruise is on the 5th of May.

The Concert Square in Liverpool will host live music and street performers while the Pub Invest Group, who own a majority of Concert Square’s nightclubs and bars, plan to overhaul the area ahead of the contest. A large screen is planned so that the contest can be enjoyed from the square.

The Eurovision Book Contest is a contest to be hosted by the Hay Festival in Wales, and celebrates European literary culture. Readers are encouraged to nominate any books originating from the 37 participating countries and were released after 1956. The books can be in any language or genre. A Hay Festival event will be held on the 2nd of June, where a selection of books from those 37 will be further examined and discussed, and a winner voted upon.

St. George's Hall, which housed the Allocation Draw back in January, will be doing a live screening of the 2nd semi-final and the grand final. In addition, they will also provide a guided tour of Liverpool, an organ recital of Eurovision classics, and an ABBA tribute night.

Various cities in the UK will be screening the grand final of Eurovision 2023 in public spaces. So far these include Brighton, Darlington, Manchester, Newcastle and Plymouth. The BBC also reported that more than 500 cinemas will screen Eurovision 2023, and the screenings will encourarge fancy dress and singalongs. Tickets for the screenings started going on sale on 27/3.

The physical edition of the Eurovision 2023 album will be released on the 28th of April, while the vinyl version will be released on the 5th of May.

Several Eurovision preview shows will take place across Europe, such as Songcheck in Germany and Adresse Liverpool in Norway.

EuroClub Location: Camp and Furnace

The Baltic Triangle location is only a 5-minute walk from the arena, and is also located on the riverfront. The club will take place between the 5th and 13th of May. It will be hosted by OGAE, and tickets for the club (both day passes and week passes) will be available in March. A pre-general public allocation of week passes is also available for OGAE members, which started going on sale on the 16th. Tickets available starting 11am GMT on 22/3.

Current confirmed performers include Conchita Wurst, Charlotte Perrelli, Jedward, Jemini, Joker Out, KEiiNO, Linda Martin, Lindsay Dracass, and Nicki French.

EuroVillage: Pier Head

The fan zone, also known as the Eurovision Village or Eurovillage, will be open from the 4th to the 13th. It has a capacity of around 25000, and opens at 1pm each day, and closes at 11pm for days other than the grand final. The Liverpool Echo reported that it will NOT be completely free to enter the Eurovillage. It was noted in an open letter that while the Eurovillage will be free for access for the semi-finals, there will be a fee to enter it during the grand final, and everyone in the area will be dispersed by 12:30am. The councillor who posted the letter explained that this was to 'protect residents' interests', as Pier Head is also a residential area. On 28/3, it was announced that over 40 artists are set to appear at the Eurovillage. It was also announced later that entry into the Eurovillage on the day of the Grand Final will cost £15, while entry on the 5th to the 12th will be free.

Important Dates:

• 3rd April: Israel Calling 2023

• 7-8 April: PrePartyES

• 15th April: Eurovision In Concert

• 16th April: London Eurovision Party

• 9th May: Eurovision 2023 Semi-final 1

• 11th May: Eurovision 2023 Semi-final 2

• 13th May: Eurovision 2023 Grand Final

Non-participating Countries: Andorra, Belarus, Bulgaria, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Russia, Slovakia

You can read their reasoning on the Wikipedia page. It largely revolves around disinterest and/or financial inability.

Also Enisa (New York, American Song Contest 2022) tweets that she was allegedly supposed to represent Montenegro in Eurovision 2023, but the broadcaster could not find a way to finance it. She also tweeted later on that her song that was meant for Montenegro 2023 was named "OLÈ", and released the full song on 8/12.

Some Turkish politicians have called for Turkey to return to Eurovision. Most of these politicians are of opposition parties, and they have in fact made a pledge to return Turkey to Eurovision should they be elected into office. And on the 6th, a six-party opposition coalition have selected Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu to challenge Erdoğan's presidency. If Erdoğan is ousted from office in the elections come May, this could likely mean a return for Turkey (or Türkiye) to Eurovision. In fact, Kılıçdaroğlu is quoted on record as saying that "it is a shame for Turkey to withdraw from Eurovision".

Fazla (Bosnia and Herzegovina 1993) says that he, now as a politician (a senior advisor to the minister of defence to be exact), will be working to get BiH back into Eurovision. The funding shortfalls could be dealt with, in his words, as quickly as 2024.

The prime minister of Luxembourg, Xavier Bettel, who is also the Minister for Communications and Media, has begun communications with RTL, the Luxembourgish national broadcaster, as well as the Council of Luxembourg, regarding potentially returning to the contest in 2024; and in fact the Luxembourgish government has created a special team to focus on returning the country to the contest. Other than Morocco, Luxembourg remains the only previous participant which has not made any appearance at the contest in the 21st century. But this could very well change in 2024.

During an MRT council meeting at the end of February, one director suggested that North Macedonia should participate in both junior and adult Eurovision in 2024, meaning that if the short-term funding shortfalls can be resolved, then we will most likely see North Macedonia return to Eurovision in 2024.

RTK, the Kosovan national broadcaster, announced on the 8th the creation of a new festival named "Festivalit Të Këngës", (very) similar to the Albanian festival, which will be used to select a future Kosovar representative for Eurovision. RTK had aimed to join the EBU by the end of 2022, but this has not taken place.

Participating Countries: 37 countries, which are as follows:

• Albania

Festivali I Këngës 61 took place from the 19th to the 22nd of December, and was hosted by Arbana Osmani.

One big name was Elsa Lila, while Fifi was another hyped name that some speculated could win the televote. Ultimately, "Duje" by Albina and the Kelmendi family won the public vote, especially being propped up by the Kosovar public as Albina Kelmendi (and her family of course) is from Kosovo. Elsa Lila meanwhile won the jury vote with "Evita", becoming a 3-time winner of the festival. Albina & Familja Kelmendi will now be representing Albania in Liverpool, becoming the third Kosovan representative of Albania after Rona Nishliu (2012) and Lindita (2017). Albina has confirmed that the song will undergo a revamp, although there will not be any English lyric additions.

On the 4th, Eurovision Albania reported on Instagram that the host Arbana Osmani and her husband Eduart Grishaj (FIK61 director) will remain for FIK62 and 63. This could mean that the new televote system will remain for at least two more years.

Eurovision Albania confirmed recently on their Instagram page that the Albanian entry will indeed be staged by Sacha Jean-Baptiste. Furthermore, the revamp is now finished, and features 60+ live instruments, mostly strings. Albina Kelmendi (unclear if by herself or with family) will also attend and perform at the various preparties in Tel Aviv, Barcelona, Madrid, Amsterdam, and Warsaw over the next two months.

The revamp of Duje as well as its music video was released on the 10th, on the official Eurovision Youtube channel. As expected, the family remains part of the Eurovision act, and will travel to Liverpool alongside Albina Kelmendi. In an interview on the 27th, Albina revealed that the staging will feature LEDs and pyrotechnics.

On 30/3, it was revealed by BBC Eurovision that the Albanian postcard was filmed in the Grand Park in Tirana, and the Kelmendi family's postcard activity was to have a barbecue.

• Armenia

On 25/1, Armenian news outlet Hraparak reported that Brunette will indeed represent Armenia in Eurovision 2023, specifically with an R&B song which will be released in late February. According to other sources, she is the main producer of the song alongside Artem Valter, who was responsible for revamping "Chains On You" after Athena Manoukian had won Depi Yevratesil 2020.

This news was officially confirmed on the 1st, when Brunette was officially announced as the Armenian representative. On the 10th, it was announced officially that Brunette's song will be named "Future Lover", and it was released on the 15th. The song featured several lines in Armenian (including "heru heru"), however most of the track is in English. The performance will be staged by Austrian stage director Marvin Dietmann.

• Australia

It was announced on 14/11 that Australia Decides will not be returning for a fourth edition on the Gold Coast. Instead, an internal selection was held. Publicly interested artists included Jaguar Jonze, Dami Im, Sheppard and Voyager.

After months of silence, SBS suddenly announced the Australian representative and the song on the 21st this month with little notice. It was revealed to be Voyager with the song "Promise". Voyager are an electro-rock band based in western Australia, who had already taken part in Australia Decides 2022 with the song "Dreamer", and had in fact won the televote.

Their new song, "Promise", was released on the same day as the artist reveal. Much of the music video was filmed in Perth in western Australia. The announcement of Voyager makes them the second Eurovision 2023 artist to come from Australia Decides 2022, the first being Andrew Lambrou for Cyprus.

• Austria

On 31/1, ORF announced that Teya & Salena will be representing Austria in Liverpool. Teya is Thea Devy, who participated in the Serbian national final in 2020. William Lee Adams from Wiwibloggs, who was on the jury which selected the song, says that he thinks the song is "absolutely crazy", but was also consistently at the top of his list. He also thinks that the song has a good chance of qualification with the televote-only system.

Their music video for the song was filmed around 18/2 in Prague, working with the Czech videographer Ruy Okamura. The song itself, named "Who The Hell Is Edgar", was released on the 8th, to great fan reception, with some claiming that it could even win the second semi-final due to the lack of juries in semis. The track is simultaneously an upbeat song with strong repetition in the chorus and a satirical analysis of the modern music industry, with lyrics alluding to the poor pay artists receive on streaming platforms and the TikTok-ificiation of the industry itself. It also criticizes the act of "ghostwriting" in modern pop music as well as the industry being heavily male-dominated in the upper echelons. On its first day of release, the song received over 150 thousand streams on Spotify. The entry will be staged by Marvin Dietmann, one of the resident Eurovision stage directors who is himself from Austria.

The Austrian postcard was filmed back in February, specifically on the 27th. It was filmed at the Rathausplatz, where the Eurovision 2015 Opening Ceremony took place. At the square, Teya and Salena were filmed ice skating as their postcard activity.

• Azerbaijan

On 7/12, Isa Melikov, the Azerbaijani head of delegation, resigned from his post. He was replaced by Vasif Mammadov, Deputy Director-general of İctimai TV. Just a day later, İTV officially opened calls for singers and/or composers to apply to represent Azerbaijan in Eurovision 2023. On 11/12, Eldar Gasimov, part of the winning duo in 2011, joined the Azerbaijani delegation as the official music producer. Submissions closed on the 31st of December, although it was suddenly extended to 15/1 a few days AFTER submissions had initially already closed.

On 1/1, 12xal, the main Azerbaijani Eurovision news site, reported that more than 200 submissions were received, most of which came from foreign composers. That said, Mammadov appears to prefer Azerbaijani talent this time around, and says that they will select the local song if a local and foreign song met the same criteria. Mammadov also says that the selection process of song and representative was expected to be completed by the end of January.

Rumours emerged that Mamagama have been selected to represent Azerbaijan in Liverpool. Mamagama had previously participated in Albanian music competition Kënga Magjike 2022, alongside such names as Alvan, Stefan, We Are Domi, and Andrea (North Macedonia 2022). These rumours emerged as Rauf Kingsley, one of the artists who submitted a song to the broadcaster, accused the Azerbaijani broadcaster of selecting Mamagama early on due to ties with the delegation, and that submissions were only being received for appearances sake. İctimai has since posted a statement on 1/2 denying this, and said that five acts were still in the running to represent the country.

These five acts were revealed on 2/2, and in addition to Mamagama, there was also Azər Nəsibov, Humay Aslanova & Əmrah Musayev, Leyla İzzətova, and Turan & Tural Bağmanovlar. It was also reported that all five acts in the running to represent Azerbaijan had written their songs in Azerbaijan, with only one of the songs featuring a foreign composer. This will thus mark the first time since 2008 (their debut) that Azerbaijan will send a locally produced track, as they are known to obtain songs from foreign (usually Swedish) songwriters for their entries.

Originally meant to be announced on the 8th, the Azerbaijani act for Eurovision 2023 was announced the day after that instead. From the five candidates, it was revealed that Turan & Tural Bağmanovlar will be representing Azerbaijan in Liverpool, with the twins from Zaqatala now going by the artist name "TuralTuranX". They will be singing a song named "Tell Me More", which was released on the 13th and written by themselves and arranged by Nihad Aliyev.

On the 26th, INFE Azerbaijan reported that Mads Enggaard will once again be staging the Azerbaijani act for 2023. He had previously fulfilled this role in 2019, 2021 and 2022.

• Belgium

VRT returned to their national final Eurosong for the first time since 2016. It was hosted by Peter van De Veire, the VRT commentator for Eurovision as well as (co-)host of previous Eurosongs.

7 songs competed to represent Belgium on 14/1 in the Paleis 12, and despite the initial favourites being Cherine and Gala Dragot, it was Gustaph who unexpectedly (even to himself) came out on top, scoring just one point more than The Starlings. Regardless, Gustaph, who had previously been a backing vocalist for Sennek and a vocal coach for Hooverphonic, will now represent Belgium in Liverpool.

On the 2nd, it was reported that Hans Pannecoucke, who had previously directed the performances of The Common Linnets and Hooverphonic, will direct Gustaph's performance, while Tom Eerebout will be his stylist and Walter Van Beirendonck - his outfit designer.

On the 23rd, Gustaph revealed in an interview that the song will not be revamped, however they are doing a lot of rehearsals and the staging will involve a lot more movement than in Eurosong. The two backing vocalists, who accompanied him to the pre-parties, will also be in Liverpool.

• Croatia

The national final Dora took place in February in the city of Opatija on the 11th. On 9/12, the 18 names in Dora 2023, plus the 4 reserves, were revealed alongside their song names and songwriters, among which was Damir Kedžo. All the songs were released at once on 12/1. Favourites included Harmonija Disonance, Đana, and Hana Mašić, although Let 3 are also very popular locally. The show was hosted by Mario Lipovšek Battifiaca and Marko Tolja, as well as Mirko Fodor.

On 11/2, the national final took place, and Let 3 stormed to victory with the song "Mama ŠČ", which featured a very distinctive and perhaps polarizing staging. The group will now represent Croatia in Liverpool, despite a slight delay in the official announcement on the eurovision.tv website.

On the 21st, it was revealed that Let 3 have filmed their postcard in the city of Rijeka, where the group was formed. In the shown footage, the members of Let 3 were seen fishing in the Mrtva canal, some of them dressed in the same outfits as the Dora performance, while others donned tuxedos.

• Cyprus

It was announced on 17/10 that Andrew Lambrou will be representing Cyprus. Andrew Lambrou is an Australian singer with Cypriot ancestry. He lives and works in Sydney, and entered a song named "Electrify" into Australia Decides 2022. Ultimately, he ended up 7th out of 11 entries.

It was revealed later that he went to Stockholm to record his track, and some of his songwriters include Jimmy Thörnfeldt, Jimmy Jansson and Thomas Stengaard, all of which are co-authors of numerous Melodifestivalen entries, so there will be Swedish involvement in the Cypriot entry for 2023.

Lambrou on a TV interview described the performance to be "epic". According to various rumours from Greek and Cypriot sources, Lambrou's song is said to resemble the style of Imagine Dragons.

On 18/2, Lambrou revealed that the music video for his song was filmed in Athens. The stage performance will be directed by Marvin Dietmann and Ross Nicholson. And on the 2nd, Lambrou's song "Break A Broken Heart" was released. The performance will be staged by Austrian stage director Marvin Dietmann.

The Cypriot postcard was filmed at the Molos Promenade Park in Limassol, where an ad-hoc custom basketball half-court was built for Lambrou to shoot hoops.

• Czech Republic => Czechia

This edition of ESCZ took place on 30/1. It was also a live national final, for the first time in 15 years. On the 4th, it was announced by the Czech broadcaster that more than 170 songs had been received, more than that from last year.

Furthermore, the voting system was 100% public vote, and it took a 70/30 split between the international vote and the domestic Czech vote. The voting opened on the Eurovision app and escz2023.com after the show ended, and ended on the 6th, after which the winner and Czech representative was announced. The show was broadcasted on the official Eurovision YouTube channel for international viewers, and on iVysílání for Czech audiences. The national final itself took place in the Kavčí Hory television centre in Prague.

On 30/1, Adam Mišík, a Czech actor and artist, hosted the 38-minute-long national final, while Rob Lilley and James Rowe, the hosts of the Euro Trip Podcast, acted as co-hosts in the green room, interviewing the artists before their performances.

The grand favourite was Vesna, with the Czech Republic rising from 28th to *5th* in the Eurovision 2023 winning odds after the release of "My Sister's Crown", and with many fans saying that the song can win Eurovision.

Ultimately, it was announced by Mišík in a press conference on the 7th that Vesna had indeed won both the Czech vote and international vote and hence the overall national final. Vesna will now represent the Czech Republic in Liverpool.

It took the official Eurovision media about 3 days to announce Vesna as the Czech representatives. As it turns out, the Czech Republic in Eurovision has now officially rebranded - to Czechia. We Are Domi were thus the last representatives of the Czech Republic, while Vesna will be the first-ever representatives of Czechia at Eurovision.

The last Eurovision country name change before this took place in June 2018 (i.e. only took effect for Eurovision 2019), which was when FYR Macedonia changed to North Macedonia.

The creative team for the Czech entry was revealed on the 17th. Zizoe Veselá (choreographer) and Bára Juránková will be the creative directors, while Matyáš Vorda will be the visual director (doing LED designs) and Vít Bělohradský, who was responsible for last year's camera cues, will return for that role this year.

• Denmark

The final of DMGP took place on the 11th in the Arena Næstved, in the city of Næstved. The hosts were Tina Müller and Heino Hansen.

On the 19th, the 8 songs competing in the national final were released at once. Favourites included Eyjaa, Reiley, and Maia Maia. Ultimately, despite the DR voting app breaking during the national final, out of those three only Reiley entered the superfinal; and it was also Reiley who won the selection, and he will now be representing Denmark in Eurovision 2023 with the song "Breaking Your Heart". It was reported however that this edition of DMGP was the least watched in *30 years*, although it was still the most watched TV show of the week.

• Estonia

Returned to Eesti Laul for their selection. The two semi-finals took place on the 12th and 14th this month in the Viimsi Atrium, while the final took place on the 11th of February in the Tondiraba Ice Hall. The hosts were Tõnis Niinemets and Grete Kuld, who also hosted together in 2021.

During 1-2/11, the 20 artists participating in Eesti Laul 2023 were revealed, while the selected songs were revealed on 2/12 on a special ETV broadcast. Favourites among fans included Alika, Ollie, and Sissi.

On 14/1, the second semi-final concluded. Public SMS voting then continued until the 16th, where the two most voted non-qualifiers would be entered into the final as televote wildcards. These wildcards were later revealed to be Elysa and Mia. These two singers joined the other 10 in the final.

For the final, the interval acts included the group Zetod singing Stefan's EL-winning song Hope (but in the Estonian language), while Stefan sang his newer songs. Karl-Erik Taukar, Ines and Púr Múdd also performed. As in previous years, the initial voting was a 50/50 split between the televote and the jury, but the top 3 of that result then entered a televote-only superfinal, where the public alone will decide the Estonian representative.

As speculated by many, Alika came out victorious, having won the international jury vote in the first round of voting, but also the final televote. The superfinal included her as well as the only other two pop-rock acts in the contest, Ollie and Bedwetters. Alika will now represent Estonia with the song "Bridges", which is co-written by Wouter Hardy who also co-wrote Arcade and Tout L'Univers, in Eurovision 2023.

It was revealed on 29/3 in a Facebook post by Tallinn Airport that the grand piano that was used in Alika's national final performance will be flown to and used in Liverpool as well.

• Finland

Returned to Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu for their national final. Samu Haber, former front-man of Sunrise Avenue, hosted the show on the 25th in Logomo in Turku, and there was an after-party that went on until 4am. Reigning UMK winner The Rasmus as well as the UMK2022 commercial success BESS performed as interval acts, as well as the host himself. There were seven finalists, and their songs were revealed one-by-one on each weekday between 12/1 and 20/1.

On 19/12, Iltalehti, a Finnish newspaper, reported a few possible names for UMK 2023, which include Robin Packalen, Portion Boys, Lxandra and Benjamin Peltonen. Sure enough, all the names reported by Iltalehti appeared, as well as Keira, Käärijä, and KUUMAA. The songs, 4 of which were in Finnish, were then released over the next two weeks. Favourites included Käärijä and Benjamin, but especially the former. Starting from the 1st, interviews with each artist were posted on the UMK Youtube channel.

On 13/2, it was announced that in addition to their current UMK broadcasts in Finnish, Swedish, English, Inari Sami, Northern Sami, and Russian, there would now also be broadcasts provided in Ukrainian and Finnish Sign Language, interpreted by Halyna Serhijivna and Miguel Peltomaa respectively. The running order was also revealed. Robin Packalen opened the show, while Portion Boys closed it.

After having generated massive hype both domestically and abroad, Käärijä won UMK by a landslide, getting *539* points and 387 points MORE than the runner-up, which were Portion Boys. Käärijä, real name Jere Pöyhönen, will now represent Finland with the song "Cha Cha Cha" in the second half of the first semi-final. Finland starts off as a strong favourite, with the country having already reached third place in the Eurovision 2023 winning odds, and many speculating that Cha Cha Cha could win the televote in May. In fact, recently Finland have swapped with odds runner-up Ukraine many times in the bookmakers.

• France

After months of near silence from the French delegation, on 12/1, Alexandra Redde-Amiel, the head of delegation, announced that La Zarra had been internally selected as the French representative for Eurovision 2023.

La Zarra, real name Fatima Zahra Hafdi, is a Quebecoise singer of Moroccan origin that currently lives in Paris. She is described as combining "the class and style of Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe, with the sense of tragedy of Edith Piaf, the post-modern intoxication of Lady Gaga, the naked frankness of Barbara, and the fragility of Dalida". Another famous song of hers is "Tu T'En Iras". Earlier on in the season, Alexandra Redde-Amiel also mentioned that they would like to win Eurovision 2023, and this was reiterated at the press conference. The song is expected to be a French chanson. It was later also revealed that the duo of producers behind Tu T'En Iras will be responsible for her Eurovision 2023 entry, and the song will feature a "surprising mix of genres".

The song was recorded on 24/1, with the French head of delegation also having been present in the recording studio as revealed by various Instagram stories. On 9/2, La Zarra posted an Instagram story of her in the studio. The photo revealed that her song for Eurovision is named "Évidemment", meaning "obviously" or "evidently" in French. On 19/2, on the show "20H30 Le Dimanche", Évidemment was premiered for the first time. The song is described as a "disco banger", and it was co-written with producer Benny Adams.

On the 20th, Redde-Amiel said on a podcast that they are trying to "combine all of La Zarra's traits into one" with the staging, and that there will be a prop. The French delegation are also trying to take a "counter-stance" against Loreen's staging to make La Zarra stand out more.

The French postcard was filmed at the Château de Fontainebleau in Fontainebleau, a commune to the southeast of Paris. In the postcard, La Zarra was seen riding a house in garden of the castle. The Château de Fontainebleau is not unknown to La Zarra, having already featured in the music video of Tu T'en Iras.

• Georgia

For the first time since 2020, Georgia returned to selecting their act via a talent show, though this time the show is The Voice Georgia, as opposed to Georgian Idol for 2019 and 2020. The final of the show took place on 2/2. The members of the judging panel on The Voice Georgia included Stephane Mgebrishvili, Dato Evgenidze, Sopo Toroshelidze, and Dato Porchhidze. The show was hosted by Gvanca Daraselia.

One of the successful participants of the blind auditions was Iru Khechanovi, who was in fact one of the members of Candy (Georgia JESC2011).

The semi-final took place on 26/1, during which Iru sang Rise Like A Phoenix by Conchita Wurst, and she qualified with over 44% of the televote within her coach's team. Despite some drama occurring with an interview quote ahead of the final, Iru Khechanovi eventually reigned supreme in The Voice Georgia, getting 21.88% of the televote with her performance of Euphoria by Loreen. The other favourites Likuna Tutisani and Lika Siradze came 3rd and 4th respectively. Iru Khechanovi will now officially be the Georgian representative for Eurovision 2023, after having represented Georgia in Junior Eurovision 12 years ago in Yerevan and winning as part of Candy.

Iru was then given a month to work on her song for Eurovision, and she has written the song alongside Giga Kukhianidze, who composed many of Georgia's recent Junior Eurovision successes such as Bzz, Candy Music, Mzeo, Let's Count The Smiles and I Believe, the latter of which Iru was in fact a lyricist for.

On the 13th, a cover for the song was posted on official Eurovision socials, and it was revealed that the song will be named "Echo". It was revealed on the Eurovision website that in addition to Giga Kukhianidze, the song was also co-written with Beni Kadagidze, who had also worked with Iru and Giga on "I Believe" for Junior Eurovision 2022. The song was released on the 16th, being the last song of the class of 2023 to be released, and is entirely in (broken) English. The performance will be staged by Marvin Dietmann, a well-known Eurovision stage director from Austria. This departs from the usual Georgian staging, where Swedish staging director Sacha Jean-Baptiste would usually be responsible instead.

• Germany

The German selection, named "Unser Lied Für Liverpool", was broadcasted on the 3rd at 22:20 German time live from the MMC Studios in Cologne, hosted once again by Barbara Schöneberger.

There was a TikTok wildcard, where the most voted song on the platform complying with the rules was entered into the selection. Voting once again involved a pre-show online vote and a televote during the show. The televoting results were also not announced regional broadcaster by regional broadcaster, as was in the case in 2022, but instead announced all at once.

On 27/1, the first 8 acts for Unser Lied Fur Liverpool were announced. Some of these names, such as Will Church, initially only put themselves up as TikTok candidates. TikTok voting closed on 3/2, and Ikke Hüftgold was victorious with over 50% of the vote, and joined the other 8 candidates in the German national final.

It was also announced that there would be an international jury, consisting of 40 jurors from 8 countries, worth 50% of the vote. The other 50% would be made up of the televote, which will be calculated proportionally rather than in scales of 12, 10, 8, etc.. The BossHoss and Ilse DeLange were also revealed as the interval acts for the national final, performing their new song named "You".

Favourites included Lord Of The Lost, Patty Gurdy, Anica Russo and Frida Gold, although Ikke Hüftgold is massively popular in Germany. Online voting started on 24/2, and ended on the 3rd.

The national final took place on the 3rd, with only 8 acts competing, as the lead singer of Frida Gold became ill shortly after the first rehearsal. Despite Ikke Hüftgold's local popularity, it was in fact Lord Of The Lost who won the televote and eventually the national final. Lord Of The Lost will thus represent Germany in Eurovision 2023 with their gothic rock song "Blood & Glitter".

In an interview after their victory at the national final, Lord Of The Lost said that they would like to have "red pyro rain" at Eurovision, and would also like to make the performance bigger and more glamorous on the big stage. Regardless, the staging will be directed by Austrian stage director Marvin Dietmann, who also directed all the performances at the national final.

On the 22nd, it was announced by NDR that Peter Urban, the resident German Eurovision commentator, will be stepping down after over 25 years of commentating on the show. Eurovision 2023 will be Urban's last commentary for NDR, as he celebrates his 75th birthday in April. It is not yet known who will take on the role of commentator post-2023.

On the 24th, Lord Of The Lost tweeted that they have filmed their postcard for Eurovision 2023. The postcard was filmed with the BBC in the docklands of Hamburg.

• Greece

ERT returned to the internal selection for 2023. On 28/12, 70 demoscopic jury members which had been randomly selected earlier went to the ERT studios to listen to the seven remaining songs in the running, and voted for their favourites. The seven artists in the running to represent Greece in Eurovision 2023 were also revealed. On 19/1, ERT announced that the shortlist had been narrowed down to Melissa Mantzoukis, Victor Vernicos, and Maria Maragou & Antonia Kaouri.

And on 30/1, ERT announced that Victor Vernicos had been selected. Victor Vernicos, full name Victor Vernicos Jørgensen, is a 16-year-old singer of Greek and Danish descent. His song, "What They Say", is described as an emotional ballad. Part of the song was (possibly accidentally) released on TikTok on 31/1.

On 2/2, Melissa Mantzoukis, the favourite among the demoscopic jury, announced that she would take legal action against the ERT jury, accusing them of intentionally giving low scores to her after seeing that she had done well with the demoscopic jury. Antonia Kaouri and Maria Maragou also revealed that they had in fact withdrawn their entry, but it was nonetheless drafted into the final 3 (and voted as the internal jury's favourite) against their will. Furthermore, from the figures released, it was revealed that the ERT jury had given out *more* points than the demoscopic jury despite the split being stated to be 50.6% demoscopic jury and 49.4% ERT jury, leading to a split closer to 45/55.

On 8/2, it was revealed on a TV interview by Mantzoukis' lawyer that ERT did not respond to Mantzoukis' extrajudicial request, and if they start legal proceedings, the representative selection process may have to be stopped for some time, and this could even result in Greece *withdrawing* from Eurovision 2023. On 13/2, ERT gave their first official response, acknowledging the possibility of withdrawal, but not addressing the flawed selection process. And on 19/2, Maria Mazakou, one of the ERT1 Eurovision commentators who had been on the ERT committee, went on a talk show to explain how the voting had worked, and basically publicly acknowledged that it was flawed, and that some songs would not receive points even when they should have, which was greeted with a positive response from Mantzoukis. Nonetheless, Mazakou implies that the final representative decision will not change, and that Vernicos is still heading to Liverpool for Greece. And despite Mantzoukis' positive comments towards Kozakou's revelations, Mantzoukis intended to continue with the legal procedure, thus leaving Greece still at risk of withdrawal from Eurovision 2023.

On the 6th, Eurovisionfun reported that the court decided not to grant a temporary injunction, and Mantzoukis' dispute with ERT will be resolved in May, *after* Eurovision. Therefore Victor Vernicos' participation will not be affected.

On the 9th, it was reported that Vernicos' track was produced by Kostas Kalimeris, Steve Sovolos and Vangelis Yialamas, and it will be staged by Konstantinos Rigos, who had staged the Greek entries back in 2011 and 2012. The track was released on the 13th.

On the 29th, ERT reported that Maria Kozakou will return as one of the Greek commentators, alongside newcomer Jenny Melita, replacing Giorgos Kapoutzidis. Kozakou had already been commentating on the contest since 2011 for ERT, with the exception of 2018. The all-female duo will provide commentary for all three televised shows.

• Iceland

Returned to Söngvakeppnin for their national final. The final took place on the 4th of March. The show was hosted by Unnsteinn Manuel Stefánsson, Ragnhildur Steinunn Jónsdóttir, and Sigurður Þorri Gunnarsson. The competing artists and songs were revealed on 28/1.

Almost all finalists brought both Icelandic and English versions of their songs, although as usual it was up to them which version they would like to sing in the final, while they were required to sing the Icelandic version in the semi-final.

Favourites included Diljá, Kristín Sesselja, and Silja Rós & Kjalar.

The first semi-final took place on 18/2, and initial fan favourite Celebs was eliminated, while Bragi and Diljá qualified for the final.

The second semi-final took place on 25/2, where fan favourites Kristín Sesselja and Silja Rós & Kjalar were both eliminated, and Sigga Ózk and Langi Seli & Skuggarnir qualified for the final. Celebs was also brought back to the final as a wildcard, having been the most voted non-qualifier out of all 6 NQs.

The final took place on the 4th. Diljá and Langi Seli & Skuggarnir were the two to enter the superfinal after the combination of the televote and international jury. During the superfinal, a wrong number was erroneously displayed by RÚV for voting for Diljá. This was noticed by many Icelanders and later addressed live by the hosts, and the votes sent to the wrong number was added to the correct number. And in the end, Diljá came out victorious, and will now represent Iceland in Eurovision 2023 with the song "Power".

After the show, RÚV reported that a voting record had been broken, with over 250000 votes cast during the final, meaning over 2/3 of the whole Icelandic population made a vote during the national final.

• Ireland

The Irish national final is named Eurosong, and it was held once again on the Late Late Show. The selection took place on the 3rd, and had 6 candidates. On 9/1, all 6 songs were released at once by RTÉ. Among the names are a well-known Dublin-based band Wild Youth, as well as John Lydon, formerly the lead singer of Sex Pistols and was known as Johnny Rotten. The fan favourites were ADGY and CONNOLLY. Both favourites pledged to make changes to their songs, with Adgy adding a 20-second part in the Irish language, while Connolly added vocal moments among other things.

Despite the initial favourites, Wild Youth won the national jury and the televote and subsequently the selection, pipping ahead of Connolly, who had won the international jury, by 2 points. John Lydon, who headed the band Public Image Ltd, only came 4th with 6 points from all three demographics. Wild Youth will now represent Ireland in Liverpool.

On 15/2, it was announced that Ian Banham will be the creative director for the Irish entry. Banham had previously already worked with Wild Youth, as well as groups like Westlife. And on the 8th this month, a slight revamp of the song as well as a music video for the Irish entry was released on the official Eurovision Youtube channel.

On the 19th, the lead singer of Wild Youth said in an interview that the staging will be "big and bold", and that they "are definitely not taking any shortcuts".

The Irish postcard was filmed in County Dublin, where Wild Youth drove a red car into the village of Glencullen and proceeded to have a pint.

• Israel

Noa Kirel was selected by KAN in July, and she officially confirmed participation in August.

In an interview with local media, Noa Kirel says that her song will have "an Israeli colour", which will be expressed either in the lyrics or production, and will bring ethnic, Mediterranean(??), and Israeli directions. Furthermore, the budget for the Israeli participation in 2023 will be set at 900,000 EUR, two-thirds of which will be covered by Kirel's team and the rest by the public broadcaster KAN. Finally, she reveals that she and her team will have artistic freedom in the selection of the song.

On 23/12, Kirel gave an interview to Yedioth Ahronoth, in which she reveals that her song is mostly in English, but also contains some Hebrew. Furthermore, she reveals to Channel 12 that there have actually been two songs recorded so far, one about love and the other about power. The ultimate decision on which proposal to bring to Liverpool will depend on officials at KAN, Doron Medalie (who recently joined the Israeli delegation and was a songwriter for Toy), and ultimately herself.

On 17/1, KAN announced that Noa Kirel's song is named "Unicorn", a song about female empowerment, and was co-written by herself, Doron Medalie, Yinon Yahel and May Sfadia. The song was released on the 8th, getting a great reception in Kirel's native Israel.

• Italy

Sanremo continued as Italy's selection method for Eurovision 2023. The event took place between the 7th and 11th. Amadeus remained the main host, although he was joined by Gianni Morandi this year, and also Chiara Ferragni for the first and last nights. Francesca Fagnani was also a co-host for the third night.

On 4/12, Amadeus announced the first 22 of the 28 contestants, the "big" names. The songs themselves were not premiered to the public until the shows happened. On 16/12, the song titles were released. A day later, Sanremo Giovani took place, and the top 6 joined the previously announced 22 names to take part in Sanremo 2023.

It was announced on 16/1 that the superfinal will now have five superfinalists, up from three previously. Initial press favourites included Marco Mengoni, Ultimo and Colapesce & Dimartino. Mengoni, who had represented Italy in Eurovision 2013 and achieved 7th place, also said that he would like to do Eurovision again.

The first night of Sanremo took place on the 8th, during which Blanco smashed some staging and kicked at some musicians due to an in-ear failure, and Marco Mengoni, Elodie, and Coma_Cose were declared the press favourites of the night. The second night took place on the 9th, and Black Eyed Peas performed as a guest, while Colapesce Dimartino, Madame and Tananai were revealed as the demoscopic jury favourites of the night. On the third night, the televote cast their vote, and the combined results revealed that the overall top 5 favourites were Marco Mengoni, Ultimo, Mr. Rain, Lazza and Tananai. Special guests that performed on the third night included Maneskin, Sangiovanni and Annalisa. On the fourth night, Chiara Francini acted as a co-host for duet covers night, and La Rappresentante Di Lista acted as guest performers.

On the final night, the vote was also purely televote, and 5 male acts were voted into the superfinal, including Marco Mengoni. He won Sanremo after winning pretty much every single local poll ever, and also alluded to the lack of women in the superfinal, which he finds to be a shame. Regardless, Mengoni will now once again be representing his country 10 years on from his previous participation.

At Sanremo, he sang the ballad "Due Vite", but at the Eurovision confirmation press conference, he suggested that he would change the song, possibly to shorten it (Due Vite is 3:45), but also possibly to another song entirely.

After much speculation, in the end, on 13/3, Mengoni confirmed that he will indeed just sing "Due Vite" at Eurovision. Although this means that there will need to be a shortened version, as the original song is 46 seconds over the permitted length.

On 28/3, the Italian Eurovision commentators for Rai were revealed as Gabriele Corsi and Mara Maionchi. Corsi has been one of the commentators since 2021, and was originally meant to co-host the semi-final Allocation Draw in 2022 before withdrawing due to contracting Covid-19. Maionchi is a TV personality who is currently a judge on Italia's Got Talent, and she replaces Cristiano Malgioglio who had previously been a commentator for Rai alongside Corsi. The commentators for Rai Radio 2 were also revealed as LaMario, Diletta Parlangeli and Saverio Raimondo. Two days later, the revamp for Due Vite was released. In addition to cutting the aforementioned sections, some new instrumentals were also added.

• Latvia

Returned to Supernova for their selection. The final took place on the 11th. On 2/12, it was announced that 121 song submissions had been received, 9 down from last year.

On 5/1, LTV released the list of artists and songs at the same time. Favourites included Sudden Lights, Patrisha, Luize, and Raum.

On 4/2, the semi-final took place. Initial fan favourites Inspo and Justs were eliminated, while Sudden Lights may have received over 20% of the vote (out of 14 candidates). Sudden Lights' song "Aijā" also debuted in Latvian Spotify charts at #40, as opposed to "Hush" by Patrisha which debuted at #155 and was the only other Supernova song to chart.

Sure enough, on 11/2, the final took place and Sudden Lights came out on top, having topped the televote and (seemingly) also the jury vote and becoming the Latvian representative for Liverpool. This means that for the first time since 2004, there will be a Latvian song at Eurovision with a non-negligible amount of Latvian-language lyrics in it, as the ending verse of Aijā is in Latvian.

The filming of the Latvian postcard took place on the 5th of March, one day after the Moldovan national final. It is not known where this postcard was filmed, other than it being in Latvia.

• Lithuania

Returned to the national final Pabandom Iš Naujo. The selection consisted of 5 shows, those being 2 heats, 2 semi-finals and 1 final. The two heats took place on the 21st and 28th this month, the semi-finals on the 4th and 11th of February, and the final on the 18th.

On 20/12, LRT announced the 30 participants of the national final, as well as their song titles.

The first semi-final took place on the 4th, with 5 acts qualifying for the final. Rūta Mur won with 10 points each from the jury and televote, while Petunija was 1 point behind receiving 12 from the jury and 7 from the televote. The second semi-final took place on the 11th, with once again 5 acts qualifying for the final. As expected, Beatrich won the semi-final, having received 12 points from the jury and 8 from the televote. Initial fan favourite Gebrasy was eliminated. Guest jurors included Duncan Laurence, Monika Liu and Vaidotas from The Roop.

The running order for the final was released on the 16th. Fan favourite Paulina Paukštaitytė was placed 4th, with the Lithuanian public favourites Beatrich and Rūta Mur directly following, while the main fan favourite Petunija was placed later than both of them at 8th. Monika Linkytė, who had been one half of the duo representative of Lithuania in 2015, closed the show.

The final took place on 18/2, and despite the initial Lithuanian public favourites having been Rūta Mur and Beatrich, it was Monika Linkytė who emerged victorious, after receiving 2nd in the televote and winning the jury vote. Rūta Mur had in fact gotten the same score, except with 12 in televote and 10 in the jury vote. Ultimately, it was decided that the jury will act as the tiebreaker, therefore Linkytė will be representing Lithuania with the song "Stay", which features a Lithuanian phrase repeated several times.

On the 21st, Monika Linkyte revealed that she has now filmed her postcard for Eurovision 2023, although the exact location is not known other than it being in Lithuania.

• Malta

Returned to MESC, or Malta Eurovision Song Contest, for their selection method. Rules largely remained the same, but quarter-finals were now re-introduced into the national final, giving us a total of 40 songs and 6 shows (three QFs (13/13/14), one semi, one final) which started on 13/1, and ended on the 11th.

On 28/12, 30-second snippets of all 40 songs were released by TVM. Ryan and Josmar, previously the MESC and MJESC hosts in 2022, hosted the quarterfinals, while the semi-final and final were hosted by Glen Vella (Malta 2011) and Amber (Malta 2015). Favourites included Brooke and Aidan, although on 23/1 Aidan was disqualified for excessive advertisement which violates TVM regulations. He has since tried to reverse that decision by taking legal action, although TVM remained firm on their action and Aidan will stay out of MESC2023. On the 4th, TVM announced the 24 semi-finalists.

The semi-final took place on 9/2, in which 24 participants were cut down to 16. Brooke remains the big favourite to win the national final after the staged live performances, although some speculated that The Busker and Maxine Pace were also outsiders with good chances.

The final took place on 11/2, during which Emma Muscat and, wait for it, Aidan, were interval acts. And despite her initial status as a favourite, Brooke only came 5th, while Matt Blxck won the jury vote and The Busker won the televote by a great margin. The latter scored enough points to win the whole national final, therefore the trio will be representing Malta in Eurovision 2023.

In a statement posted by TVM on 13/2, it was announced that unlike last year, there will be "minimal changes" made to The Busker's song, "Dance (Our Own Party)", between the conclusion of MESC and Eurovision. On the 9th, a slight revamp to the song as well as a music video was released on the official Eurovision Youtube channel.

• Moldova

The selection is now named Etapa Națională, and live auditions were then held on 28/1. A live show took place on the 4th of March, consisting of 10 acts. Around Christmas of 2022, a new head of delegation was also appointed, that being Daria Căpățînă, who is also the head of children's content at TRM.

On 17/1, Moldovan broadcaster TRM revealed the 33 artists taking part in the live auditions, as well as their songs. Among which we have SunStroke Project with "Yummy Mommy", as well as the 2012 and 2013 Moldovan representatives, Pasha Parfeni ("Lăutar") and Aliona Moon ("O Mie"), this time with songs named "Soarele Și Luna" and "Du-mă" respectively. The main favourites were the three aforementioned returning acts.

On 28/1, the live auditions took place, during which the jury voted on their favourites and decided on the 10 finalists to appear on the live show. SunStroke Project came out on top, followed closely by Pasha Parfeni. Aliona Moon placed fourth with the jury, although it should be noted that this jury will not vote in the national final. Lola, an initial favourite, was disqualified, as she was stuck in traffic and could not attend the live casting on time.

The running order was released on 10/2, with Aliona Moon, SunStroke Project and Pasha Parfeni going in order from 7th to 9th one after another. Donia opened the show, while Corina Ivanov closed the show.

On the 1st, TRM revealed that people with a Moldovan phone number will now have to register to vote in the national final (although now the voting is free), and that for the first time ever, the number of votes will be shown *in real time*. Sudden Lights and Theodor Andrei would be performing as interval acts.

In the end, despite placing below them in the auditions round, Pasha Parfeni eventually won both the jury and the televote, getting one more point than Aliona Moon in the jury and getting double the amount of votes than Sunstroke Project in the televote, therefore becoming the Moldovan representative 11 years on from his previous participation. He will now represent Moldova with "Soarele Și Luna", taking part in the second half of the first semi-final.

Pasha Parfeni's postcard was filmed on 28/3, as announced by him in a post on Instagram. It was filmed at the Orheiul Vechi canyon, northeast of Chisinau, and the postcard will be 37 seconds long. In the photos shared by Pasha, he was seen planting a cherry blossom, in an area which is also populated by many blossom trees.

• Netherlands

On 1/11, it was announced that Mia Nicolai and Dion Cooper would be representing the Netherlands in Liverpool. Their song was co-written by Duncan Laurence, the 2019 winner, as well as Jordan who is Laurence's partner. Initially, and for many months, the song had been stored on an online database as "Chasing Highs".

After having said in an interview that the song is NOT named "Chasing Highs", Nicolai and Cooper's song, (now) named "Burning Daylight", was released on the 1st this month.

• Norway

Returned to Melodi Grand Prix for their national final. The semi-finals took place on the 14th, 21st, 28th respectively, in Nydalen in Oslo. The final took take place on the 4th in Trondheim. The hosts for this year's edition of MGP were Arianrhod "Arian" Engebø as well as Stian "Staysman" Thorbjørnsen. Major changes to the MGP format were introduced:

1. The 5 semi-finals became 3. The number of competitors remained unchanged from 2022, with now 7 acts in each semi-final.

2. There were also NO duels. The three qualifiers in each semi-final were determined solely based on the most voted songs, and there was no "second chance" round.

3. There were NO pre-qualifiers. All artists were required to go through a semi-final to qualify for the final.

4. There was an international jury consisting of 10 countries, with 5 jurors each, in the final. The jury took up 50% of the voting power, with the other half going to the televote.

On 4/1, NRK revealed the contestants in a live press conference. It was also announced during the live presentation that now people could only vote for ONE artist per semi-final, as opposed to previously where one could give three votes.

On 6/1, VG.no reported that for the first time ever, artists taking part in MGP will be able to use autotune to correct 'sour' tones in their singing. Although according to various artists, usage of autotune appears to be optional and depends on how much, if at all, an artist wants to use it.

Ukrainian Eurofan eurovanya uploaded a TikTok of Miss Ukraine from Miss Universe 2022, with Queen of Kings by Alessandra Mele as the soundtrack. This TikTok subsequently went viral and the song with it, making Queen of Kings one of the most streamed national final song of the 2023 season.

The final took place on 5/2, with Alessandra Mele storming to victory winning both the international jury and the televote, while Ulrikke placed second. Alessandra, originally from Italy, will now represent Norway in Eurovision 2023.

Stig Karlsen, the Norwegian head of delegation and the project manager of MGP, has said that new dancers which can sing well and dance at the same time will be found for Eurovision, and the performance will be more dynamic, using the large LED walls on the stage. Alessandra also posted an Instagram story of her singing an Italian version of Queen Of Kings, although it is not known whether this will be the version that she brings to Liverpool. The music video for Queen Of Kings was posted on the 24th.

• Poland

The Polish selection, named Tu Bije Serce Europy! Wybieramy Hit Na Eurowizję, took place on 26/2, and consisted of 10 songs. The voting was made up of 50% televote and 50% jury. Two rounds of voting took place: the first one with all 10 songs, and then a second round where the top 3 most voted songs in the previous round go to a new separate vote. On 14/2, it was reported that the jury would be headed up by Edyta Górniak (Poland 1994), and that they will vote on a scale of 1 to 3 for the superfinal.

On 15/2, the 10 acts participating in the national final were revealed. Among them were Kuba Szmajkowski from last year's selection, Alicja from Eurovision 2020, early fan favourite Jann with the song "Gladiators", as well as Dominik Dudek, Maja Hyży, Natasza, Blanka, Ahlena, Felivers, and Jan Majewski.

The national final took place on 26/2, and Kalush Orchestra, Stefania from Greece 2020 and 2021, Ochman, Sara James, Efendi, Roksana Węgiel, and Edyta Górniak performed as interval acts.

The winner of the national final was Blanka with the song "Solo", however many people, Eurofans and Polish locals alike, suspect that the selection had been rigged, pointing to evidence such as Blanka being invited onto TVP to sing Solo multiple times, while the other songs had no coverage at all; as well as the overwhelming public favourite, "Gladiator" by Jann, having been voted very low by the jury. This has caused massive discontent against TVP, with numerous dislikes and hate comments on Blanka's performance video and several petitions to send Jann to Eurovision, while Gladiator is now trending at number 1 on Spotify in Poland in BOTH the Viral 50 and Top 50 charts. Regardless, it is unlikely for the Polish representative to change at this point, and Blanka will almost certainly continue to represent Poland in Eurovision 2023, having confirmed her presence at several preparties.

Blanka's postcard was filmed on the 27th in Warsaw, with about 20 to 25 extras acting as partygoers while Blanka acted as a DJ.

• Portugal

RTP has confirmed Portugal's participation in the upcoming contest, as well as their annual national final of Festival Da Canção. There would now be a televote wildcard for each semi-final, giving us 12* songs in the final.

On 9/11, RTP announced the songwriters for FdC 2023, as well as the dates for the festival. It will take place on the 25th of February, and the 4th and 11th of March. The announced songwriters included such names as Barbara Tinoco, as well as Claudia Pascoal (O Jardim, Portugal 2018), and also a group named You Can't Win Charlie Brown.

On 22/12, RTP released the semi-final draw for the 20 artists, and on 19/1, the songs were released all at once. It was announced that the first semi-final will be hosted by Tânia Ribas de Oliveira and José Carlos Malato, the second semi-final by Sónia Araújo and Jorge Gabriel, and the final by Filomena Cautela (Eurovision 2018 co-host) and Vasco Palmeirim. Fan favourites included the aforementioned Barbara Tinoco and Cláudia Pascoal, as well as Mimicat, Ivandro, and Edmundo Inácio.

The first semi-final took place on 25/2. Both major fan favourites, Mimicat and Claudia Pascoal, qualified, along with 5 other artists. It was meant to be 6 total qualifiers, one of which is a televote wildcard, however Esse Povo's voting line experienced technical difficulties, and they were given a free pass to the final. The final will now consist of 13 participants instead of the original 12.

The second semi-final took place on the 4th. Carlos Mendes, Nicolas Alves, Filipe Sambado and Surma performed as interval acts, and favourites Barbara Tinoco, Ivandro and Edmundo Inácio qualified for the final alongside 3 other artists.

Major favourites for victory included Edmundo Inacio and Mimicat. And on the 11th, the final took place, hosted by Filomena Cautela, Vasco Palmeirim, and Inês Lopes Gonçalves. David Fonseca, Salvador Sobral, Jesus Quisto and Maro performed as interval acts, with the latter having performed "Saudade, Saudade" accompanied by all the FdC 2022 finalists.

After a dramatic sequence of jurors from different regions revealing their scores, Mimicat came out on top in the vote, having won both the jury and the televote. Mimicat will now represent Portugal in Eurovision 2023 with the song "Ai Coração", taking part in the first half of the first semi-final. This also marks the first fully Portuguese-language song from Portugal since 2020. Edmundo Inacio, Claudia Pascoal, Barbara Tinoco and Ivandro completed the rest of the top 5.

In a recent interview, Mimicat revealed that the performance in Liverpool will retain the Cabaret feel and continue to feature 4 dancers, but will no longer have a sofa.

• Romania

Returned to Selecția Națională for their selection, which took place on the 11th. The team however is a new one, who announced that SN2023 would be 100% televoting, instead of the 17% like 2022. The show was hosted by Ilinca Băcilă (Romania 2017, "Yodel It") and Laurențiu Niculescu.

85 songs were finally received, 12 of which were announced on 17/12 to be the finalists in February. On 23/12, the randomly drawn running order was released, and the songs were released 6 days later. Favourites included Aledaida, Theodor Andrei, and Andreea D & Folclor Orchestra. Starting from 30/1, TVR started posting live performances (akin to the Moldovan live auditions) of each artist with their song, starting with Amia.

On 11/2, the final took place, where Theodor Andrei, having been relatively unnoticed throughout most of the season, stormed to victory with a very unique performance of his track "D.G.T. (off and on)", which is both in Romanian and in English. Andrei will now represent Romania in Liverpool, competing in the second semi-final. In an interview, Theodor Andrei confirms that the song will remain bilingual for Eurovision.

• San Marino

Returned to Una Voce Per San Marino for their national final. However, this year there was no "big artists" group that got pre-invited to the grand final, although famous artists may still be invited to the semi-finals without going through the casting round. Senhit and Jonathan Kashanian returned as hosts having already hosted the inaugural edition, while Achille Lauro performed during the show as well.

There were, as usual, two sets of auditions. From there, 106 artists proceeded to the semi-finals. The grand final took place on the 25th, with 5 pre-recorded semi-finals hosted by Ilenia De Sena, being broadcasted between the 21st and 24th of February, ahead of the grand final which contained 20 artists from the semi-finals.

One interested big name is Elettra Lamborghini, who had participated in Sanremo 2020. Had she signed up then she could have skipped the auditions and directly get put into a semi-final. And on 18/1, some Italian media reported that she had indeed made a submission to the Sammarinese broadcaster. SMRTV also reported that over 1000 submissions had been received, with submissions even coming in from such countries as Azerbaijan, North Macedonia, and Mexico.

On 23/1, it was announced that Al Bano, a very famous Italian artist, as well as the Italian Eurovision representative in 1976 and 1985, would be chairing the jury which will select the Sammarinese act for 2023.

On 17/2, TvBlog reported on several possible semi-finalists for Una Voce Per San Marino, which included Pamela Prati, Francesco Monte, Moreno, Deborah Iurato, *Eiffel 65*, Manuel Aspidi and Le Deva. A day later, SMRTV announced that there would be not 60, not 80, but *106* semi-finalists. The semi-finals were recorded between the 18-20th, and broadcasted between the 20-24th. The jury for the grand final consisted of two jurors chosen by San Marino RTV, one chosen by the Segreteria di Stato of San Marino, two chosen by the production company, as well as the aforementioned Al Bano. There was no televote.

The full list of semifinalists was finally revealed on 20/2. Apart from Pamela Prati, all the names mentioned earlier were confirmed as semifinalists. In the list we also find Ronela Hajati, off of Albania 2022, as well as Nicole Hammett from MESC2022 and Alfie Arcuri from Australia Decides 2019. Elettra Lamborghini was not on the list.

The prerecorded semifinals were then broadcasted over the last full week of February. There are four qualifiers for each round, as well as four second chance qualifiers. 20/2 saw Alfie Arcuri qualify for the final. On 21/2, the second semi-final took place, and Eiffel 65 qualified for the final, despite what some perceived to be a poor song and performance from the now-duo. 24/2 saw Ronela Hajati, who had only qualified for the Second Chance round the day before, qualify for the final.

The final took place on 25/2, and only the top 10 were revealed. Ronela Hajati did not make this top 10, but fan favourites Le Deva and XGiove came second and third respectively. The winner was revealed to be Piqued Jacks, a band with a song named "Like An Animal". Eiffel 65 meanwhile came 5th. Regardless, Piqued Jacks will now represent San Marino in Liverpool, performing in the second half of the second semi-final.

On the 17th, Piqued Jacks announced that they are preparing a revamp of "Like An Animal", and it will be released soon.

On the 24th, it was announced by SMRTV that the creative director for the performance will be Nick Marianos, while the stylist will be Noell Maggini.

During the Barcelona Eurovision Party, Piqued Jacks revealed that the studio cut of "Like An Animal" will be released on the 5th of April.

• Serbia

Returned to Pesma Za Evroviziju for their national final. The dates for Pesma Za Evroviziju 2023 was the 1st and 2nd this month for the two semi-finals, and the 4th for the final. The hosts were Milan Marić and Dragana Kosjerina, the latter of which was also the Serbian spokesperson for 2021 and 2022. Kristina Radenković and Stefan Popović were the green room hosts.

The participating names were announced on 9/1. Artists such as Tijana Dapčević (North Macedonia 2014) and the rebooted Hurricane were included on the 32-long list, alongside such names as Angellina who had sung "Origami" as a fan favourite the year prior.

On 27/1, the running order of the semi-finals were revealed, and the songs were revealed soon after. One favourite was Luke Black with the song "Samo Mi Se Spava".

The first semi-final took place on the 1st this month. 16 acts took part, and 8 of them qualified for the final. Fan favourites Luke Black and Filip Baloš qualified, while other fan favourites Angellina and Savo Perović did not.

The second semi-final took place on the 2nd, which saw the rebooted Hurricane and Zejna among others qualify for the final. One of the interval acts was a Eurovision medley, where Zorja performed "Lane Moje", Sanja Vučić performed "Wild Dances", and other Eurovision classics such as "Fairytale" and "Euphoria" were also performed.

The final took place on the 4th. Some fan favourites included Zejna, Princ, and Filip Baloš. Despite what some had viewed as a weak staging in the semi-final, Luke Black performed in the final with an improved staging, and won the national final by placing second with both the jury and televote. He will now represent Serbia in Eurovision 2023 with Samo Mi Se Spava. Luke is in fact good friends with Filip Baloš, and says that he plans to take Filip with him to Liverpool.

Speaking of Filip Baloš, it was announced on the 5th by OGAE Serbia that their members have decided to select him and his song "Novi Plan Drugi San" as the Serbian entry for OGAE Second Chance 2023, becoming the first publicly announced act for OGAE Second Chance.

• Slovenia

On 8/12, RTVSLO announced in a press conference that they had internally selected Joker Out, a Slovene pop-rock band, to represent Slovenia in Liverpool in May. This is only the third-ever internal selection for Slovenia, the first two being in 2013 and 2020. Joker Out recorded their entry in Hamburg in December, and they describe their song as "retro, lively and sexy". The music video was filmed on 22-23/12.

The song was released on 4/2, and was presented on a show named "Misija Liverpool". On 29/1, RTVSLO revealed that Joker Out's song will be named "Carpe Diem", and Carpe Diem was released 6 days later. The song is fully in the Slovene language, although they revealed in an interview that the song was initially in English, with the title "Want Me".

On 18/2, Joker Out became the first participant to film their postcard. It was revealed by RTVSLO that the postcard production company have opted for participants to film their 40-second postcards inside their own country, as Joker Out filmed their postcard segment simply on the roof of the RTVSLO building, also featuring several pinball machines.

• Spain

Returned to Benidorm Fest for their national final, for a second time. The national final took place on 31/1 for the first semi-final, the 2nd this month for the second semi-final, and the 4th for the grand final.

The voting system remains the same, but there will now be two more participants in each semi-final, bringing the total number of participants up to 18. The main presenter of the show was Monica Naranjo, while Inés Hernand returns as a co-presenter. It was also later reported that Rodrigo Vázquez would be joining Naranjo and Hernand as co-hosts of the show as well.

The list of participants was released on 26/10, and the songs were released all at once on 19/12. It was announced on the 29th that Edurne (Spain 2015, "Amanecer") and Gloria Trevi would be the interval acts during the semi-finals, while Ana Mena and Manuel Carrasco were the grand final interval acts, in addition to Monica Naranjo herself.

The final took place on 4/2, and Blanca Paloma won the selection, winning both the jury and televote and coming second in the demoscopic vote. Blanca Paloma, who had already been in Benidorm Fest 2022 alongside Chanel, will now represent Spain in Liverpool. Paula Quintana will be the artistic director for the performance.

The music video was filmed on the 2nd this month, as revealed by RTVE in an Instagram story. And a week later, the music video was released.

On the 11th, Jose Pablo Polo, one of the producers and composers of EaEa, said in an interview that changes have been made to the song to elevate it to a higher status. Also, the Spanish delegation had already sent the staging package and materials to the EBU by the 11th.

On the 14th, Publico reported that the RTVE budget for Spanish participation this year is just under 733000 euros, which is 11% more than Chanel's participation last year. This is the second highest participation cost since records began in 2011, when in 2019 "La Venda" by Miki Nunez costed over 782000 euros. This was however later refuted by RTVE, who on 28/3 announced the budget to be exactly 656572 euros.

On the 17th, RTVE tendered a €5000 purchase of 22 red fringed TRIPOLINA curtains with dimensions 2.1m x 3.5m. These appear almost certainly to be used in the staging for Eaea. On the same day, Blanca Paloma also wrote on Twitter that they are trying to keep the concept that was executed at Benidorm Fest, and thinks that the Liverpool stage was tailor-made for this performance. She also revealed that she is now taking English classes, as she is not very fluent in the language. In addition, she says that her favourites this year are Norway, Czech Republic, Sweden (specifically, she calls Loreen "my sister"), and Austria.

On the 28th, RTVE announced broadcasting plans for Eurovision 2023. It was revealed that the semi-finals and the finals will all be broadcasted on La 1, with Tony Aguilar and Julia Varela returning as the commentators. Furthermore, a farewell party will be held for Blanca Paloma on the 27th of April, although she does not leave for Liverpool until 28/4 the earliest, as she has a guest performance in Madrid that day.

• Sweden

Returned to Melodifestivalen for their national final,hosted by Farah Abadi (reprising her role from 2022) and Swedish comedian Jesper Rönndahl. Melodifestivalen toured the country over several heats, starting on the 4th of February and concluding in a grand final in Stockholm on the 11th of March.

The full list of Melodifestivalen participants were revealed by SVT on the 29th and 30th of November. It was also announced that the semi-final (still known to most fans as Andra Chansen) will no longer feature duels. Instead, it would be a simple vote where the 4 most voted entries out of the 8 will get to progress to the final. However, halfway through the voting, the four highest ranked as well as lowest ranked would be displayed separately (in no particular order within each group), and viewers would get to vote again for their favourites. At the end the scores would be presented live and the viewers will be able to see which of the four finalists were comfortably voted the highest and which ones had to fight for the final.

The first heat took place on 4/2, which saw Jon Henrik Fjällgren and Tone Sekelius advance straight to the finals, Victor Crone to the semi-final, while LouLou LaMotte and Eva & Ewa did not qualify. Interest in the festival appeared however to be experiencing a slump, as the first heat received the poorest viewing figures of any Heat 1 in over a decade.

The second heat took place on 11/2, where Panetoz and Maria Sur (a young Ukrainian singer who recently signed with Sony Music Sweden) went straight to the finals, while Theoz and Tennessee Tears went to the semi-final. Wiktoria, despite her popularity, did not qualify for either. It was reported as well that this was the least watched Melodifestivalen Heat 2 since *2006*.

The third heat took place on 18/2. Marcus & Martinus, as well as Paul Rey, went direkt till final, while Melanie Wehbe and Nordman went to the semi-final. Laurell Barker, despite being a renowned songwriter for Eurovision and Melodifestivalen, only came 6th out of 7 participants as a singer.

The final heat took place in Malmö on 25/2. Despite a stage invader/protestor interrupting Loreen's performance causing her to have to restart, Loreen sailed through the heat, having been the first artist to be announced direkt till final. The other direct finalist was Smash Into Pieces, while Mariette and Kiana will go to the semi-final.

The semi-final took place on the 4th. As mentioned above, gone were the duels, and in their place is a simple vote where the 4 most voted artists would get to advance to the final. Those 4 artists would turn out to be Mariette, Nordman, Kiana and Theoz. These 4 will now join the 8 direct finalists in the grand final in Stockholm.

Bookmaker favourites were Loreen, Marcus & Martinus, and Maria Sur. Although Loreen is the overwhelming favourite, to the point that Sweden has exceeded Ukraine's ESC2023 winning odds lead for the first time in a year. Furthermore, her performance of "Tattoo" has charted not only in Sweden, Norway and Finland, but also in countries such as the UK, Ireland, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Malta, Croatia and Estonia. Meanwhile, the song on Spotify has stayed at number 1 in Sweden *every day* since its release on the platform, and also charts highly in Norway, Finland, Iceland, Lithuania and Estonia.

On the 11th, the final took place. And to almost no one's surprise, Loreen won very comfortably, getting 92 out of 96 possible international jury points, and getting over 20 points more than the televote (and overall) runner-up, Marcus & Martinus. So 11 years on, Loreen will once again represent Sweden at Eurovision, and according to bookmakers, looks poised to outright win the contest once again.

Maria Sur however did shockingly poorly, only getting 10 jury points and 37 televote points and ending in 6th place overall. Smash Into Pieces, Jon Henrik Fjällgren, and Theoz rounded out the top 5, although Kiana only got 2 fewer points than Theoz. Tone Sekelius placed last overall after having placed 5th last year, while Paul Rey received an entire 1 televote point.

On the 13th, "Tattoo" made history by charting in the Spotify global top 200, placing 185th with just over 1 million streams in one day. Outside of Sweden, it also charted in: Iceland, Finland, Norway, Estonia, Poland, Lithuania, Israel, Denmark, Netherlands, Latvia, Belgium, Ireland, Greece, and Austria. On the same day, the track also reached a total of 10 million streams on Spotify.

Even before Loreen's Melodifestivalen victory, there had been reports that the staging would have to be changed for Liverpool, as the top LED screen is likely too heavy for the M&S Bank Arena and takes too long to set up. On 28/3, it was reported by Aftonbladet that the EBU and BBC are creating "conditions that create a level playing field". However, SVT remains silent about how the staging will be modified.

On the 29th, it was reported by Aftonbladet that Loreen will be performing at the various preparties in Madrid, Amsterdam and London, and sometime during April she will also be in Berlin for interviews with German media. Earlier in late March she had already travelled to Norway to do interviews and meet the Norwegian representative, Alessandra, during which Alessandra kissed Loreen's hand, as captured in an Instagram story from Island Records.

• Switzerland

Continued to use an internal selection for their Eurovision act. On 27/11, Ovi Jacobsen (Romania 2010 and 2014) posted on Facebook as an international juror that the Swiss selection this year was now in its "last round".

After months of silence, Jean-Marc Richard, one of the Swiss French commentators, revealed on 19/2 more details on how the Swiss act had been selected, and that the Swiss act for 2023 would be announced on the 7th of March. Jean-Marc also mentioned that they "strongly believe in this exciting project that will offer a quality, modern melody with a strong theme and vocal abilities".

On 20/2, the Swiss representative was announced to be Remo Forrer, the 21-year-old winner of The Voice Switzerland season 3. His song, named "Watergun", was released on the 7th this month. Forrer will represent Switzerland with this song in the second half of the first semi-final.

On 31/3, it was revealed that for Remo Forrer's staging, he will be accompanied by 4 dancers - two female, two male.

• Ukraine

Returned to Vidbir for their national final, although it was pushed early, from the usual date of February to now December of 2022. The event was held in the Majdan Nezaležnosti (Independence Square) metro station in Kyiv, and 10 songs competed.

The national final took place on 17/12, and despite the initial status as favourites, neither KRUTЬ nor Jerry Heil won the selection, with them ending in second and third place respectively. The winner of the selection was instead TVORCHI, a duo consisting of Ukrainian producer Andrij Hucuľak and Nigerian vocalist Jeffrey Kenny (real name Jimoh Augustus Kehinde), with their song "Heart Of Steel". TVORCHI, who had previously also participated in Vidbir back in 2020, will now represent Ukraine in Liverpool.

A participation confirmation agreement between Suspilne and Tvorchi was signed on 28/12. This will thus mark the first time since 2018 that a winner of Vidbir from the same year actually goes to Eurovision. In several interviews, Tvorchi have stated that Heart Of Steel will receive a revamp, especially to strengthen the chorus of the song.

On the 9th this month, the long-awaited revamp of the song was released, alongside a music video. Some words in the second verse were changed to be in the Ukrainian language, in addition to a richer instrumental.

On the 23rd, details of Tvorchi's performance was revealed in a tender document. The budget is set at around 74000 euro, and it includes items such as choreography, props, transport of said props, as well as costumes. These costumes will be created by the 20th of April, while the props will have been delivered to Liverpool 3 days prior. This budget is about double that of Kalush Orchestra's, as they did not have any props.

On the 29th, more details on Tvorchi's staging were revealed. The duo will be accompanied by 2-4 male dancers (there was 2 at Vidbir), and their outfits and staging will not be similar to that in the national final. Furthermore, augmented reality (AR) will be used in the performance. On the same day, voting opened on the "Dija" application for the Ukrainian public to vote for the Ukrainian jury members. The 10-long shortlist includes several artists, such as Roxolana who had been in Vidbir 2022. Voting closes on the 5th.

• United Kingdom

Selection method is internal and once again involved TaP Music. The Daily Mail, a British newspaper, reported on 10/12 that Molly Rainford could be in the running to represent the UK on home turf. Molly Rainford, 22, was a finalist on Strictly Come Dancing 2022, and had in fact rejected Simon Cowell's offer to be under his label 10 years prior at Britain's Got Talent.

Some however are speculating that Japanese-British singer Rina Sawayama with the song "Frankenstein" may be selected to represent the UK instead. However, on 24/12, RadioTimes.com reported that Rina's freed-up schedule coinciding with the Eurovision rehearsal schedule was merely a coindence.

On 20/1, Ben Mawson from TaP Music has ruled out specifically the song Frankenstein as the British entry, and implied in another Instagram reply that unlike with Sam Ryder the previous year, the song had not been played on air yet, or even the artist decided. In a separate post, he also says that TaP Music "continues the hunt" for the UK entry.

On 31/1, the BBC posted an article, in which there was a graphic stating that the UK entry is expected to be confirmed by early March. Furthermore, on 30/1, the Daily Mirror interviewed Ben Mawson, who said that the selection is now down to four acts "in varying forms of established", while TaP co-founder Ed Millett said that they “should, perhaps, not have a guy”. The act may also not be ethnically English/Scottish/Welsh/Irish, with Ben alluding to the multicultural population in the UK.

On 25/2, The Sun reported on two of the exact identities of the 4 artists still in the running. Firstly, they noted that the 4 artists were all women, as was implied by Ed Millett. Then, they reported that two of those names are Mimi Webb and Rina Sawayama, both of which were of course nominated for the BRITS Best New Artist award. The Sun noted that neither of them were occupied for May.

One other strongly speculated name was Freya Ridings with the song "Weekends". However, on the 6th, this was publicly denied by the artist herself.

On the 8th, the day before the artist reveal, British newspaper The Sun posted that the British artist would be Mae Muller, with the song "I Wrote A Song". Fans have however noticed on a song database that there was a new 3-minute-long cut of "Holy" by Rina Sawayama.

But sure enough, on the 9th, Mae Muller was revealed as the British representative for Eurovision 2023 with I Wrote A Song. She was congratulated on Twitter by Rina Sawayama shortly after the announcement. This marks the first female representative of the UK since 2018, when SuRie had took part on behalf of the UK in Lisbon. It was also revealed that she had already been selected for over two months, despite the Rina Sawayama rumours continuing to surface during that time.

The performance will be staged by Austrian stage director Marvin Dietmann.

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So that's all I know about Eurovision 2023 so far! If you know anything else, tweet me @BlueRigel4 or comment on this blog. I fully anticipate making regular updates within the month to this post. Here's the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLyF7vQlU1M