It’s the Baltic broadcaster whose Eesti Laul national final is a regular on the Eurofan calendar. And now Estonia’s ERR has revealed that a total of 178 songs were submitted for Eesti Laul 2020.
Lead producer Tomi Rahula revealed that 76 of the songs are in Estonian and 102 in other languages, suggesting the show’s famed diversity will continue. Although the number of song submissions is slightly lower than last year, he stressed that the level of quality has improved. He said: “It will be a difficult task for the juries.”
Submissions for Eesti Laul 2020 opened on the 1st of September 2019 and closed yesterday on the 6th of November. Following the successful partnership between Estonian songwriter Stig Rästa and Swedish singer Victor Crone at Eurovision 2019, collaborations with foreign songwriters were welcomed again this year — just so long as the number of foreigners involved in a song didn’t outnumber the number of Estonians contributing.
A jury of 14 music experts will now evaluate the songs submitted to the competition. As a result of the electronic voting, 24 songs will enter the semifinals of Eesti Laul. All songs, performing artists and songwriters who have reached the semi-finals of Eesti Laul will be revealed on the ETV show “Ringvaade” on November 13th and 14th. Tomi Reahula says: “We should keep it exciting by publishing 12 songs each night.’’
Last August, Estonian broadcaster ERR released the details of its popular national final Eesti Laul 2020. And with it came the confirmation that Estonia would be sticking with the expanded 24-song format that led to grand final success in Tel Aviv.
According to Tomi Rahula the format has proved its worth, and many of the submitted songs are instantly playable on TV or radio. “The quality of the songs submitted to the competition is high and thus we can expect a truly exciting and varied competition”.
The show will keep the same format as in 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 televoting 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 televoting alone.
Do you think that Eesti Laul’s selection format will be successful once more? Let us know in the comment section down below!
Looks like nobody actually knows
Good news. There is so much great music in Estonia. Should be awesome.
An entry just like “Kuula” would be a great choice for Estonia. No Suedes anymore, please !
Let’s bring this nation back on track. Where are the masterpieces??? Enough of Stinky Pästa.
Koit Tomme and Laura +Kerli and i am readyyy
I hope Stig Rasta will miss one year competing
Maybe Elina would replaced him
Hopefully Estonia’s song next year will be a lot better than Storm. Storm was such a bland song that did not deserve to qualify.
Estonia’s national selection have so much quality and they put so much effort in their performances. I’m sure they’re working hard to win this year.
Baltic realness – i am readyyyy
*had
This is exciting.
Here is to hoping that they pick the one who has better vocals and less acknowledgement on looks alone.
Estonia is among my favorites in ESC usually (sorry, but Victor was a disappointment). So yeah, high hopes, low expectations.
Despite Victor being rather sexy (certainly sexier than Stig’s song was), I want Estonia to send an Estonian singing in Estonian. I hope Eesti Laul will find its way back to its past glory because it usually is one of the best NFs. I still love and listen to “Soovide puu”, but the performance did close to nothing for me. Regardless, I still adore Sandra. I wish she would participate every single year. A true Estonian treasure.
I really hope Elina Nechayeva has submitted an entry and if so wins again this year. That would be truly deserved. Just keeping my fingers crossed…
She had her moment in 2018, let’s hope for something fresh and even more interesting. But I’ll keep my expectations low after last year’s selection.
elina has said before that she doesn’t mind returing to eesti laul but i highly doubt that she’ll be back so soon
I like Elina too but I think it’s a bit too early for her to return again (maybe two or four years from now would be more acceptable).
Eesti Laul brought great entries in the past, and Storm might not have been their most interesting entry but it was still a quality pop song. I hope they can deliver the quality they brought in 2009 and 2015, those were two years in which they deserved the top 3.
WE‘LL HAVE THE SONGS NEXT WEEK????
This is exciting isn’t it?!!!!!!
They will be revealed on the 2 nights (so next Wednesday and next Thursday)
Not sure we’ll get the full songs next week, might just be names or snippets. There’s an extra show to introduce the participants on the 30th, that’s when we got the songs last year. They could have changed it I guess, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up too high, may have another few weeks to wait. 😉
Yeah that‘s what I also saw somewhere
I really hope that they have better songs after last year’s disaster. I love Eesti Laul as they used to bring very unique sounds every year but 2019 was a very poor year for them and as if that wasn’t enough they chose the lamest possible option for Tel Aviv. Good luck!!
Weren’t Parmumäng and that cat song unique?
literally anything will be better than st*rm…
i love the eesti laul format, i’m glad they’re keeping it. it’s usually my favorite selection but this year it really disappointed (even tho i love storm), hopefully next year they’ll get back on top
agree don’t know what happened last year..
Sure it will !!!!