The last microstate standing will be at Eurovision 2018 — with the help of the internet. San Marino has confirmed they will bring “the Internet’s candidate” to Eurovision in Lisbon. They’re teaming up with new website, 1in360.com, to launch a global search for a Eurovision star.
SMTV announced the news today at a press conference alongside 1 in 360. The announcement comes with this promo video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6lRmgIz5Wo
San Marino and 1 in 360 — how it works
In the first part of the contest, performers from any country can enter the search. This even includes groups. Submissions will be accepted online from October 21 to November 30.
Judges will then select seven acts from a pool of eligible entries, along with three wildcards selected at a later date. Contestants either have to achieve 100 “likes” on the 1 in 360 website, or pay a 4.99 Euro fee to be heard by the judges. Gotta pay those bills somehow, y’all!
The ten candidates will be all revealed in December. They will be featured in a number of shows broadcast online, to battle it out to reach the final.
Each artist will work with a selected songwriter, and they will work together to create an original song. Each candidate with then perform their original song and a cover. Televoting will decide the ultimate winner, who will earn both a record deal and the Eurovision spot.
Judges will be revealed one per week throughout November, and all will be linked to Eurovision or the entertainment industry. We don’t know about y’all, but this sounds intense — and we’re loving it!
The online search is a flashback to Switzerland’s previous search for Eurovision stars. Whilst that didn’t always result in a “quality” group of entries, San Marino may do one better.
With the power of the internet behind them, San Marino will hope to make the final for only the second time. And to be clear — there’s nothing to stop Valentina Monetta entering for a fifth time!
What do you think of San Marino’s new approach to Eurovision? Are you going to enter the search? Let us know all your thoughts in the comments section below!
Here is the 1in360 entry video of Silvia Vicinelli from Italy. She could be a wise choice for San Marino: A worldclass singer, native speaker and a very experienced stage performer with an authentic and strong personality. She also writes her own music. Silvia recently recorded and released a self-written duet that she wrote for a well known 6time Grammy winner from the US. You can find out who that is and more about her on her YouTube channel.
https://www.1in360.com/fullscreen-page/comp-j9hahnfy/58d80028-bf26-11e7-bb53-12dd26dd586a/33/%3Fi%3D33%26p%3Drtseg%26s%3Dstyle-j9hkcdgd
Hello 🙂
We would like to share with you this amazing news : ENDING SEQUENCE is competing officially for the preselection of #SanMarino2018 #Eurovision Song Contest ! Check out this link below and support us by clicking on ??
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https://www.1in360.com/fullscreen-page/comp-j9ig8ubs1/8919408a-53de-4383-82b6-684bdd224b15/43/%3Fi%3D43%26p%3Dq7cp4%26s%3Dstyle-j9imusj0
Does anyone think that this will help San Marino send a good song and make the final next year? Because I don’t.
This is why I love San Marino: they always bring fun to Eurovision!
Must be a good singer among all the artists entering the internet submission, but San Marino will fail, as always, in the song.
I’m surprised nobody has asked this question: How many Turks will sign up for this one? 🙂 Will Serhat give it another shot?
ooh you know what this means- vasilije ojdanic will be trying to fool us again with an ‘original’ song 😛 This sounds so cool though, hopefully there’s a good outcome (and how crazy is it that san marino teamed up with a website to have a Sammarinese national final XD)
Christof Straub (zoe’s composer and father) liked posts on 1in360’s facebook page … will he submit a song?
So Zoe could represent San Marino? That’s great! She is one of the loveliest people ever to take part in Eurovision and I’d love to see her again!
Christof has confirmed that he is part of the team “working on” San Marino’s entry. We could see Zoë being a judge or having some other role in this.
@EscAU – speaking of Vasilije, he pulled a huge lie on us in a Facebook group. Sometime last month, he posted X-rays claiming he had a throat tumor and saying that he would never sing again because of it – it turns out he faked the whole thing because the next day, he submitted a song to the Slovenian national selection (the X-rays were stolen from somewhere and/or someone else).
Wait… everyone can participate regardless of their nationality? So San Marino really is a “Rest of the World” next year.
From what I understand it’s Pan-European, so not sure it applies to artists outside Europe (???)
“Any country. Any genre. Any age. (Minimum age: 16)” quote from 1 in 360 website, so anybody that satisfy the age restriction can compete there, not restricted only to Pan-Europeans
Total Slayage Realness anyone?
We are re-mastering it right now! haha!
Nice! San Marino always being friendly….
That’s the ESC spirit… participating, playing, no matter the result. I will be certainly following it
Time for William to step up and do his thing… Total Slayage Realness (Honey)!!!
Stepping up. Let’s slay this selection!
This is Deban and William’s chance!!!!!!!!
William: “Debaaaan”
Deban: “Hey, William…are you the one I dream about?”
I love this idea. We’re in. Let’s do thiiiis!
But who is going to write the songs?
If Siegel is involved, it’s likely to be (yet again) a short week for San Marino in Lisbon. They’d be better off getting a song that never made it to the televised portion of another contest, one he did not write.
Well, this will be a hot mess!
This has got disaster written all over it.
I love everything about this concept, but how does it address San Marino’s legitimate grievances about the stand-in televote score which consists of a group of countries having nothing to do with San Marino’s own televote? Is it willing to overlook this with the hope of achieving its best score yet because of the international component of the whole idea which should translate into more buzz and more points? We’ll have to wait and see, but it’s somewhat problematic when there’s no requirement for either the singer or the writers to have anything to do with Sammiranise identity. Even when… Read more »
Exactly!
Because it is first and foremost a “SONG Contest”, not a “Contest of Nationality”.
But if it turns out that ‘money can buy you love’ from the national juries to at least qualify to the final, no one is gonna hold it against those dreaming of a foot hold in the ESC universe. As long as the steering committee of the EBU and the reference group don’t interfere in each country’s internal selection criteria, the end justifies the means. There are a few EBU member countries which delegate the selection process to private entities with questionable practices, but as long as they’re qualified as legal and are supposedly supervised by accounting and law firms,… Read more »
Well, I’m currently jobless – maybe I should give it a try.
jk – my stage fright is too big for such thing.
Anyway – it is a interesting way to choose a representant and I wish it’ll work for them.
Hey, if Blanche and Hannah Reid conquered their stage fright…
… Then so can you! #believeinyourselfrealness
Entry via Internet? That was unexpected.
Just to make it clear, because I think I’m confused:
So, anyone can submit, then 10 will be selected (7 through likes and 3 wildcards), then they will work with songwriters to produce songs and finally they will compete in a final, where the televote will define who the representative will be.
This sounds like what Germany did this year, and we know how that turned out…UGH! Why copy a losing formula?
Hardly revolutionary, TBH. Oh well, at least they are baaaaack. 🙂
@Robyn Gallagher, thanks a lot.
Indeed, that seems like what Germany did last year. It doesn’t sound hopeful.
Valentina Monetra with finally a jazz song is gonna win this
I wish all of San Marino the best of luck, I really hope the best artists and singers enter, and maybe more songs in Italian or any of their native languages are sent, if they there get a Ralph Siegel song, which worked great in the previous decades but know isn’t working aswell, they will do great.
Good luck and hopefully they get a great song next year
I bet Valentina Monetta is going to take part and win, NO ESCAPE FOR THAT.
Exactly that’s so true, I mean she is really talented don’t get me wrong, but hopefully we can see more of San Marino and not just her, I’m sure San Marino have great singers and song writers
If it turns out to be yet another Siegel song then the whole process is for nothing.
Otherwise I think it sounds great. A nice modern selection process that works well for this digital era. I think people has been looking for something modern from San Marino in ages.
And why not searching bigger? It’s not like they have that big of a pool to choose from! Going wider is a good choice!
why can’t they just get some Melfest reject like so many eastern European countries and make most of the eurofans happy…because most people won’t be happy until every European country sends a song written or produced by a Swede
“Europe’s Greatest Singing Competition”
Well, it’s a SONG contest after all. We’ve seen a couple of fancy ways of selecting a decent/good/great singer that would eventually be given a lacklustre talent search style song. I guess the idea of creating a song “on the spot” might be kind of a problem here – but at least they create different songs for each individual artist.
I can honestly, say I am proud of San Marino. It’s good seeing a selection process which really works well with Modern Times, making it acessible for a European Audience!
A big well done SMTV from me!
Do you know what? Kudos to them for continuing to participate! Although just send something in Italian again…
That’s interesting. Good luck anyway.
Haters gonna hate btw.
I hope they send IROL one day, with a good rap song. He has talent.
A mess, a kii, a cackle. Good luck San Marino!
I don’t care what anyone says, I’m in. At least I’ll be able to say I was in a NF for Eurovision.
Good luck!
if ur name is hada, i’ll look for you.
Good to see they are trying… I never liked any of the entries they sent to Eurovision. Their 2013 and 2014 were just OK, the rest… ugh.
This process almost reminds me of Die Entscheidungsshow (Switzerland). Let’s hope the outcome is much better than the last 3 years. 🙂
If Ralph Siegel is on the songwriting panel and his song is the one chosen to represent San Marino, this whole thing becomes a farce. 🙁
I find it clever, and entertaining. Well done San Marino!
All you naysayers, they are micro state, with a very small pool to choose from. What do you expect them to do? At least they are being inclusive, and doing their best with all the constraints they are facing. Please stop your negativity.
At least theyre trying.
Sounds like a fancier method of national finals ?
pfffffff
what a revolution this is….
This looks so not professional ! 5£ fee !!!! Very wrong ! Not full information given . Who is that jury panal …. what record company will give the record deal ( I can offer a record deal myself to anyone lol . That’s not a big prize ! ) Even an album will be produced ! Come on guys ! San Marino is struggling since years to get the finance together and now they offer something that sounds big but is nothing. A serious casting is free of change first of all! This sounds like a rip off for… Read more »
Maybe the money is to the 1in360 website?
Having a nominal entry fee is meant to keep the jokers out, so they can focus on those with serious intent. And if you’re so poor you don’t have the money, just be interesting and you’ll easily get 100 likes. This is a totally valid decision.
What a wonderful idea! I love it! They give chances to all the artists in the world, interested in taking part… Some of them may become globally succesful! There are many artists interested in taking part but in their home countries they cannot participate because some of the countries hold internal selections of the artists (Belgium, Azerbaijan, Macedonia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Russia and so on). This idea of San Marino allows the interested artists from all over the world to participate (even Asia and Africa or even USA) since the nationality of the singers is not mentioned…
smh why do they hate their local artists so much lol
I think, they simply don’t have any of them. Except for Valentina Monetta, of course 🙂
He looks cool as a spokesperson and I would love to see him lol
Really nice idea, and to a point it’s up to us to decide… Tbh i think i will compete too, for the fun.
I think SMRTV is trying to trick us… paying those 5 euros for a “chance to be viewed by over 200 million people” and then Valentina presents herself, she wins and San Marino already has the money for their participation… I’m just saying, think of it like that!
Well at least it would mean she can take part with a song of her own, it’s not that bad. Also, as the final is televote only, it would be televoters fault to make this happen sooo..
Well at least it would mean she can take part with a song of her own, it’s not that bad. Also, as the final is televote only, it would be televoters fault to make this happen sooo..
AHAHAHAH don’t give them ideas! (although I think it would be a good one; I’d like to see Valentina once again, mainly bc Portugal is my country)
hopefully this works out for them
Love this idea 🙂
Damn I really believed those Natalie Imbrugalia rumours.
Why? Do you honestly, truly believe she would even put herself in such a position?