As the 2016 Eurovision Season kicks off and the “Autumn Leaves” are all set to begin falling, MRT, the public broadcaster of FYR Macedonia, has revealed its plans for Skopje Fest 2015.
MRT has called singers, composers and songwriters to submit their songs for Skopje Fest 2015, one of the main musical events in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The competition is scheduled to take place on November. The exact date is yet to be decided.
Skopje Fest has a long story, begining back in 1968, when FYROM was still a part of Yugoslavia. After running for 12 years, it was canceled in 1980, only to be revived in 1994 by the recently formed Republic of Macedonia.
In 1998, when FYROM first participated in the Eurovision Song Contest, the festival was selected as the way of chosing the country’s first representative. That continued until 2011. In 2012 though, MRT announced that Skopje Fest will continue being held as an independent event but without having anything to do with the national selection for Eurovision. Nevertheless, this decision didn’t last long and on 15 July 2014 it was announced that Skopje Fest will return as the Macedonian national final for Eurovision.
Skopje Fest has caused a lot of controversy and the results have repetitively been doubted, mainly beacause of the announcement of only the top three places, as well as the fact that neither the points of jury, nor the televote results are made public
It is probable that the winner of Skopje Fest 2015 will get to represent FYR Macedonia in Eurovision 2016, if the country eventually participates. The deadline for songs submission is September 15th. All songs must be no longer than four minutes, must be in Macedonian language and must not be released prior to Skopje Fest.
At least, it’s Macedonia, not FYR Macedonia or FYROM.
Methinks they need to move the contest to February or March. What may sound spectacular in November may end up sounding lame in March when most of the other entries start trickling in with their songs; and they’ll be right back where they were this May; failing to qualify.
Well guys i was always calling this country as just *FYR* here on WiWiBloggs whenever i have ever refered to them..
You can call this country as you wish & i won’t criticize you..
But because you are unaware of whats happening & what the real issue is here you can’t just state that im truly close minded person because i refuse to call them just *Macedonia*..
And im sure that the Germans would do mind if another country wanted to call themselfs Bavaria..
Or the Spanish people would mind if another country outside Spain wanted to call themselfs Kataluna..
Omfg the whole Macedonian naming dispute is just so obnoxious. There’s the country Georgia and the American state Georgia, yet you don’t see ethnic Georgians complaining that the Americans “stole their name”. Just grow up please and leave politics out of music. I wasn’t gonna originally comment on this article, but seeing how literally all of the comments are about Macedonia’s name, I felt I had to.
Mario is Greek and the author is Greek, that’s why there’s so much attention on calling the country FYROM here. To me, they are Macedonia. Shame people have such closed minds that they can not even bring themselves to type a nine letter word. Look to the future. That’s where we belong. Including Macedonia. 🙂
Well it doesn’t matter…4 me this country is just FYR.. Former Yugoslavian Repuplic of something but definitely NOT of *Macedonia*.. The only real authentic Macedonia YES is in my country Greece of course.. This ‘country’ is just lucky that is participating in our Vision & exists overall with that illegal occupation…Anyway i won’t bother discussing the political aspect of this & i will focus on the part about ESC… Was let down 4 me this year that they sent Daniel…His song finished just 3rd in the juries & he won just because he was popular with being winner of X… Read more »
FYROM, USA, UAE, UK, PRC, we all know what they mean anyway, it’s just easier to type honestly.
They should send Lozano! He definitely shouldve qualified in 2013 if Esma wasn’t apart of his act
A least, write FYR Macedonia, not FYROM. I doubt that you would like somebody to call you HR just because you’re coming from the Hellenic Republic, right?
Now, onto the festival. I hope that they will enter some good entry in Stockholm, but now withstanding, they are hopeless.