Spain‘s long-seen song selection gala still has no date, but the winner will be selected by 100% televote. On Thursday, RTVE confirmed these rumours. But today, Spain’s Head of Delegation, Ana María Bordas, dropped some even bigger news ahead of an official statement.
In an interview with Czech Eurovision vlogger Jan Bors, Ana María confirmed that not only can Spanish vote, but the vote will be open to all fans from any country. This means that you can also vote in the Spanish national final!
Hey #Eurovision fans! I know that #EurovisionFrance is in focus but what about #EurovisionSpain? There you go the interview you were waiting for with the Head of Deleagation Ana Bordas from Spain.
Humans of Eurovision #14 – Ana Maria Bordas
https://t.co/xD9TEdB1Z9 pic.twitter.com/o78KKTBVJ7— Jan Bors (@jan_bors) January 31, 2021
Spain Eurovision gala voting open to international audiences
As Ana María Bordas confirms, anyone from anywhere will be able to vote in Spain’s song selection gala. The Spanish broadcaster is set to conduct this voting online, before the event takes place. The voting won’t be geoblocked outside Spain. Once the event is underway, the online voting will close and audiences will be able to vote through SMS and phone calls, just as in Eurovision.
Ana María explained:
“Everyone and from every part of the world will be able to vote for Blas’ songs since we want to open the voting to everyone, not geoblocking it. We have a lot of fans in South America and this is a great opportunity to welcome many people to the voting, and decide for the song. We spoke with Blas and his team and he told us he wanted people to take action on that.”
For Spain, this is again a new form of choosing their participation in Eurovision. Unlike countries like Sweden and Italy who have long used the same selection method, the Iberian nation is a constant flux of variation.
The Head of Delegation elaborated, “Having a Swedish or Italian fixed selection methods is today not on the table for Spain. Because we lack this fixed system, we have to reinvent year to year or use different platforms depending on circumstances.”
So now y’all know why Spain goes from internal to pre-selection to Operación Triunfo from one year to another.
Three scenarios simultaneously
Ana María Bordas not only shared voting details but already revealed that Spain is now working with three stagings: the one for the gala, backup staging if Eurovision is remote-produced, and the staging if Eurovision goes ahead in at Ahoy Arena in Rotterdam. Despite the thirst for details, Spain’s staging plans will remain a secret for now.
But Spain’s staging issues are no secret to fans, and neither to Ana María Bordas. This includes Amaia and Alfred’s performance in Lisbon 2018, Barei in 2016 or Soraya Arnela’s change of choreography before her 2009 appearance.
Ana María ensures staging is one of her priorities and worries. “I am always worried of staging. We are working with staging directors and spending lots of money and energy in having a good staging. With Miki, for instance, we had a colourful and powerful staging… so I am worried. We are very self-critical, and we don’t understand what happened that year. The staging is important, but so is the song. I don’t think the poor results of 2018 were stage-based.”
Blas Cantó’s two songs will also remain a secret. Ana Maria Bordas hasn’t given any clues about what the songs are like, but but she has confirmed that both will go online soon and both are completely different.
But Ana María has revealed one thing. Like Manel Navarro’s previous comment, Ana María also says that Blas two new songs are better than “Universo”.
She explained, “We have worked with Blas since summer. We chose two songs, that are great songs. I think the audience will appreciate them as they are really good, better than “Universo”.”
Ana María Bordas ambitions and the future of Eurovision
Ana’s biggest ambition as HoD is to finally change the reluctance of many renowned artists to represent Spain in Eurovision. As Ana explains, it is not easy to convince them and bad results hold them back. However, she insists all artists should consider doing Eurovision it as it is a great professional and personal experience.
She said, “They simply don’t want to go, despite Eurovision being the biggest show of Europe, and the world. We must change this thinking. And we should keep making more musical shows, and more marketing, to promote events like Eurovision.”
The future of Spain in the contest hopefully looks brighter that their last five years of poor results. As Spain is a member of the Big 5, Ana María Bordas agrees the country has to deliver more but does all what they can.
She explained, “I see why the Big 5 should deliver more, if their spot is secured in the grand final. We try. It also happens in Germany, the United Kingdom and France. We talked about it together, and we don’t get it. I just try to do my best and work a lot.”
Eurovision is a big show and Ana María acknowledged it from the very beginning. “When I first started [2017], I understood there needed to be a bigger team covering all areas from marketing to communication rather than managing solely. I did opposite at what was being done, to open the process and cooperate with more teams. But as well, to take advice from experts.”
Ana María took the role just in time for the biggest Eurodrama event in Spain’s history — Objetivo Eurovision 2017. To that she says: “it was tough.”
The fact that Spain, the UK, France and Germany talk to each other about how and why they underperform made me chuckle… Like surely it has to be more about them going to Italy and asking them how they get it right??
The genial que risa part
Can’t understand your comment
we want to send Ana Mena (famous in Spain and Italy) to Eurovision 2022! Maybe goes the next year! who knows!!
Um, I appreciate the opportunity to have a say as a fan, but I think a system where the Spanish public’s choice has more weight than ours is a good one. Like in the Czech Republic, isn’t it that Czech public votes are more influential (which is a good balance).
Thanks for an interesting article. I am slightly confused about why Spain’s HoD feels they cannot settle on a fixed national format- is that a budget issue with RTVE?
Anyhow, when I look back, my favourite Spanish entries of the past decade (2012, 2014 and 2015) came from slightly different sources. (Interestingly they all had non-Spanish songwriters, hmmm.)
Best of luck to Jordi.
no thank you, wish spanish language would get respected more in other genres than overrated reggaeton
I think RTVE are doing things right this time.This is like an internal selection but inviting everybody to take part of the process, which is great, get fans involved, even if it’s only between two songs. Blas will be happy whatever the outcome is (happier than if he had a bunch of 5 songs to choose between but he only really liked two of them – too risky) and will also feel safe that it’s the public’s choice too. I imagine what would had happen, had he presented “Universo” together with other option last year (Maybe the duet with Pastore… Read more »
I wouldn’t like this concept of choosing the song to be the one my country has…
But maybe the spanish like this way of selection, idk.
Good luck from Portugal 😀
I don’t like this as a spaniard
My comment received downvotes, but i was saying that cause i do think it’s not the best option of choosing when you do have a spetacular song. For example: if Salvador Sobral in 2017 was voted this way in Portugal, i do not think was the winning song… In the end of the day, a good result or a bad result is more than the position the song ends. “O jardim” end up on last, but we the portuguese were happy anyway, cause it was OUR decision!! Anyway, i hope you end up with a song that MOST spaniards are… Read more »
I am really looking forward to this. Now even more, knowing I’ll be able to vote. I expect both of Blas’ songs to surpass Universo. I also really like Ana’s attitude as a HOD. I agree that Big 5 should give more as their spot in the finals in guaranteed. They should be the last ones going with ”safe” or ”boring” options, since they don’t have to fear the NQ status. France having a grand NF this year is a huge step forward and I’d advice Spain to consider doing a similar thing for 2022, if there is any interest… Read more »
I think Spain is better off with an internal selection, they just need to pick the right artists… UK is also better with an internal selection, Germany as well probably.. I’m on the fence with France, but Italy should definitely keep Sanremo!
I don’t know… I feel like British and German NFs feel too restrained for their resources, but I can’t deny that my two absolute favorite 10/10 songs (Never Give Up On You and You Let Me Walk Alone) came from national finals. Spain had some messy formats in the last couple of years, but I think they could polish it. Of course, I don’t mind internal selections either, if they put as much energy into them.
I would have thought/hoped that My Last Breath and Violent Thing would have won respective NFs but look what happened with Freaks and to a lesser extent Sweet Lies. Sometimes you cannot trust the public!
First Latvia, then Czech Republic and now Spain. Thank you for the countries that let me play the Eurovision game by casting a vote from time to time. 🙂
That was a good interview, but I think Spain shouldn’t settle down so easily for the “we can’t have a fixed system”. Maybe they’re planning to use Operación Triunfo as a selection methode again or to stick to internally selecting, but repeating the selection process for a few years in a row would probably help them to understand what they’re doing right or wrong.
Speaking of Latvia, weren’t/aren’t they supposed to release their song today since it is January? idk tho
Robyn, do you know anything about that thing that somebody commented about Mello’s final and subimission’s date (you said you will search it ;D)