Estonian broadcaster ERR has released the details of its popular national final Eesti Laul 2020. And with it comes the confirmation that Estonia will be sticking with the expanded 24-song format that led to grand final success in Tel Aviv.
The show will keep the same format as recent years. There will be two semi-finals held on 13 and 15 February. In each semi-final, the 24 competing acts will battle for the 12 places in the grand final on 29 February 2020.
The grand final qualifiers will be decided using two rounds of voting. First, a jury and televote will decide the top eight out of the 12 acts in each semi. Those eight will then face a further round of televoting where the top six will qualify for the grand final.
At the grand final, the 12 acts will compete and will again face two rounds of voting. The top three acts will be decided by a jury and televoters. Those acts will battle it out in a superfinal. There, winner of the Eurovision ticket will be decided by televote alone
Entries for Eesti Laul 2020 open tomorrow, 1 September 2019 and close on 6 November 2019. Following the successful partnership between Estonian songwriter Stig Rästa and Swedish singer Victor Crone, collaborations with foreign songwriters are welcome — just so long as they don’t outnumber Estonians.
The broadcaster is again putting an emphasis on quality over quantity, with a limit of five entries per songwriter. And no John Lundvik situations — songs can’t be submitted from a songwriter who has submitted an entry to another country.
There’s also a participation fee, with a reduced rate for anyone entering a song in Estonian. Such songs will pay €25 for the early bird fee, or €50 if they enter in November. Songs with lyrics in a foreign language will pay €50 early bird fee or €150 if they enter in November.
From there, a jury will blindly select the 24 competing songs. They should be announced no later than 22 November, and fans should expect to hear the songs themselves by 1 December.
Eesti Laul was first expanded to 24 competing acts in 2019. There, Swedish singer Victor Crone won with “Storm”, penned by Estonian songwriter — and Eurovision 2015 singer — Stig Rästa. The performance got Estonia into the Eurovision grand final for the second year in a row, where they finished 20th.
What do you think? Who would you like to see enter Eesti Laul 2020? What sort of act should Estonia send to Rotterdam? Tell us your thoughts below!
I might be late, but I just came here to see if I remembered right. So how did Victor submit for Sweden Melofest 2020, but still wrote for Traffic?
Exactly! At least someone is not deaf and blind, thank you Rockfan & Sabrina. Eesti Laul 2019 was a huuuuuuge letdown, also because of the new producer of the show. Many technical problems, bad camera shots, bad stage… and a big majority of generic mainstream pop songs. Where are those alternative bits? Almost only Parmumäng out of 24 songs? I loved 2009, 2010, I loved their half-pre-recorded semi finals in 2010–2018, creative and full of ART and funny stuff. Now when they have 12 performances in live semis it’s too much and they can’t handle such a number. Eesti Laul… Read more »
Song in foreign language is now 75 euros not 50 like last time.
Eesti Laul is one of my favourite national selections and I can’t wait to hear all 24 entries for the 2020 edition! always a bunch of cool, interesting and different songs every year and I still listen to several from 2019(including Pretty Little Liar, Without You, Milline päev, High Heels in the Neighbourhood, Soovide puu & Halleluja) I like the new semi-final format where 8 out of 12 songs progress to a 2nd round of voting where only 2 will fall short making the final, better then the daft previous format where Top 5 go through and the other qualifier… Read more »
I agree, most songs last year went for a similar lane of safe music. Which was a pity, because Eesti Laul is one of those national finals that I really enjoy watching. The 2018 final was a perfect example of musical diversity.
Storm was surprisingly engaging live so I’m going to trust that Estonia know what they’re doing and keep sending cool acts. Haven’t sent a bad song since 2014.
their 2011, 2012 n 2013 entries were really good as well, play was the only bad one for me
I kinda dug Play. Didn’t care for Amazing.
Eesti laul is one of those cool national finals filled with unique songs…but the problem is Estonians always choose the most average one from the bunch
While the winner of Eesti Laul can be foreseen pretty easily every year, the songs which go on to win are, in my opinion, not always average. Apart from 2019 of course, the winning songs are pretty varied – they include 2018’s Elina with a pop opera track, 2017’s Laura and Koit with an ’80s-inspired melancholic pop track, and the two moody Eesti Laul winner songs from 2015 and 2016. Let’s see what 2020 brings!
The last thing Estonia needs is a John Lundvik song. I do hope the Estonia songwriters will step up their game from 2019, though. Like, bigly.
God. Swede haters make me sick. Get over yourself. We came 5th because we were good. Get over it and move on with your life.
Your opinion dont make sense becasue we have competed for over 50 years and only 3 we have won the jury so NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
ps jealousy is a good colour for you
Must you turn every single post on here into another rant about just how much you hate Sweden in ESC, even though the article isn’t about them?
We get it, you don’t like Sweden. You made that clear. You find the songs overrated. We get it. No need to spam other posts about your aversion. Or attack other people who don’t finds Sweden overrated. It’s a opinion, not facts.
And people wonder why Swedes get so defensive..
I like Sweden
they don’t need another stig rusty song either. storm was cute but the estonian ed sh**ran needs to retire for a bit now
Don’t worry, young Beano has got about 10 different accounts on here – he/she is the typical wind-up merchant – it’s best just to skip over the posts as they’ll usually be filled by spite.
Oh my. Someone still seems to be bitter that I was right about Belgium 2019. 🙂
You’re proving my point – full of spite deary. If you’d bothered to stick around on here during the Eurovision live performances, you would have seen my thoughts on the Belgium 2019 performance. But no, you stuck to form – how predictable!
Spite? If that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black. You dedicated an entire comment just for attacking me for no reason and without knowing anything about me, so don’t be surprised to get the response you deserve. Was the point that you’re a bitter, old crone? How predictable, indeed. 🙂 Sucks for you.