Prague is calling! Česká Televize have today announced the 2024 edition of the Czech national selection ESCZ will take place on Monday December 4th. Notably, for the first time ever, the show will have a live audience!
This year, the show will take place in the Roxy Club in the country’s capital. For the first time in ESCZ history, there will be a live audience made up of fans and press, who will watch the competitors fight for their chance to represent Czechia at Eurovision 2024 in Malmö.
Prior to this year, the selection was online with fans and professionals voting on music videos and online pre-recorded performances. The exception to this was for the 2023 edition where a show containing live performances was introduced. The winner was then announced in a later show on the ESCZ YouTube channel. This year sees the return of Adam Misik as host.
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Czechia aims high with ESCZ 2024
There is no doubt the Czech delegation will be looking to build on a wildly successful 2023 contest. The band Vesna and their powerful song “My Sister’s Crown” brought a moving message about feminism and women coming together to be strong. The group achieved a Top 10 result in Liverpool — made even more impressive by the fact they performed immediately after televote winner Käärijä from Finland.
We spoke with Ahmad Halloun — International Press and Media Manager for Czechia at Eurovision — and he made it clear how much he’s looking forward to the next Eurovision cycle.
“After the great result of Vesna last year we are super excited to jump into this adventure once again with the full support of the Czech music scene. We are doing baby steps, from music videos, to live on tapes, to live final and now with an audience in what we believe is a great place for us to continue growing. Having an audience is something that will help us engage with the public and grow in the right direction. Everyone in Roxy and at home will Have so much fun!”
The progress Ahmad mentions is clear in the quality Czechia sends year-on-year. We have been able to rely on Czechia for quality thorughout the national final. Could we see fan-favourites return, such as Pam Rabbit, Guidi or Eliz Mraz? Pam and Eliz in particular have entered more than once, with Pam coming 2nd in 2023’s final. Elis even did this twice, in both 2020 and 2022.
You can apply to be an audience member by emailing [email protected] with your desire to attend. The ticket to the show is free, so what are you waiting for?
Will you be heading to Prague to watch ESCZ 2024? Who would you lie to see return? Which fresh faces to the show are you hoping to perform? Let us know what you think in the comments, and stick around for when more details are released from the Czech team!
first time live audience? what are you talking about? in 2007 they had live audience – I was among it
2007-2009, the “lost years” of Czech ESC-partaking 🙂 LOL
Off topic completely, but The Roop have just confirmed to be competing in Lithuania’s selection this year. Song apparently will be released in January but they seem to be super confident about it. Thoughts on this? I’m conflicted as obviously I want to see fresh faces getting a chance to go to big ESC but if the song is good…
Happy news.
What a surprise….. Albania is this time only the third country to determinate or reveal its entry for ESC.
So far my list
France 9 out of 12
I hope Regina Holaskova is among the participants.
I’m loving the flow of the 2024 season so far
We got Malta starting MESC in October and France dropping their entry in November, some national finals will take place in December
I’m glad countries are giving us something to be excited for this early because I’m used to wasting time before getting actual progress
One thing I am convinced of is that the Czech Republic will win before the end of the current decade !
The idea of a Eurovision set in Prague sounds great!
Trueeee ! ^^
Looking forward to this and hoping I can get a couple of hours off work on a Monday in three weeks… Western hemisphere problems, lol. I kind of think Czechia would be a wonderful kickoff to every season.
Good luck getting the time off! I love ESCZ, I also would love this to be how the season starts every year, it’s always so good.
I’m cool with December NFs… weekdays not so much. But yeah, the ESCZ fields have been great over the last three or four editions; it’s almost like shoestring UMK.
What a wonderful surprise! So, this year we get at least 3 ESC entries, and at least three more sets of songs! Now we are talking about a more evenly distributed season. Much appreciated!
This is a really good point, about the even distribution. Does it mean we have a quiet season in February-ish though? Where everyone is getting their songs out very early or very to-the-wire in March? Will be interesting to see!
Czechia!! What a lovely surprise!!
EBU wanted to make Eurovision live during all the year and it’s exactly what is happening and it’s so cool! Give us again more! I mean no need to wait until March it’s useless, and no need to have all the NFs during 2 months in January and February it’s too packed, I mean some saturdays we have sometimes 5 or 6 finals it’s too much and some selected songs for Eurovision don’t have their momentum because of that. I mean in one year we have 52 weeks, we have in average 40 songs per Eurovision, I mean we make… Read more »
Who doesn’t leave the junior singers in peace?
Some eurofans….and weirdly always the same, so if they have more adult stuff to take care it would be perfect.
It’ll be super interesting to see what Greece and The UK do, given with Greece we already know the artist, and with the UK they chose their artist (and maybe song??) over the summer – very out of their usual pattern. Will we get The UK’s sooner if it’s a big name, to promote the heck out of it?
Let the Eurovision season begins REALLY in September every year.
Looking forward for The UK and what they will do this year of course.
Surprise us and don’t wait 10th of March please the UK esc team.
But which UK big names could be interested to go in Malmo?….it’s complicated…..
Little mix? Birdy? Rina?
Bring us the Spice girls, One Direction, Jessie G or Ed Sherran lol it would be a big bang in the fandom.
I mean I could absolutely see Rina going considering she has talked about wanting to go in Liverpool!! Personally I don’t know how relevant Birdy would be for Eurovision anymore, but I’d die if Little Mix did it, I love them (but I think they’re focussing on more solo projects now). Top hope for me is Rina, a smaller name I’d love is HYYTS who were approached for 2020 before James was picked. They’re Scottish too and it’s been decades since we sent a Scot…literally 3 and a half DECADES. Highly recommend giving them a listen, they said the song… Read more »
Interesting ty so much I will check that, yeah Rina seems really competent and she is a great performer.
Birdy would be gorgeous for UK !
Three songs before Christmas? That sounds interesting.
Marek Ztraceny or Mirai please
Jelen, Slza, Divokej Bill…
Wow, so soon. I can’t believe by the end of 2023, we’ll have three songs for the 2024 contest. We are truly lucky
I prefer later, I don’t want them too soon. January 1 at the earliest, I at least want to hear them for the first time in the year they will actually be competing. I am quite odd, though.
I am on team Gimme Songs Sooner, it’s almost winter already, I need all the distractions to get through the darkest time of year. (Daylight affects me so much, truly a delicate flower here)
I am on the team Gimme Songs Evenly (sorry, Azerbaijan).
Well, I mean, unless someone is forcing you to listen to the songs, it’s pretty much your own choice when you wanna hear them, keep them on hold until the Eurovision Week if you want
and also Netherlands artist reveal
honestly i am confident its going to be The Jordan (formerly known as Caro Emerald) with a solid jurybait dark pop ballad
That means we will have six artists and three songs by the end of the year plus songs from Benidorm and Eesti Laul.. that’s awesome news!
Maybe this season is more quiet in terms of tehnical stuff but we are getting new artists and possible entries quickly!
Any rumoured songs entries???
Well, definitely not Adam Misik since he’s the host again. I heard a new song from Barbora Mochowa and it’s nice, but not better then her previous entries. But I would love to see her compete.
A guy called ADONXS is highly rumoured – he was born in Slovakia but won the equivalent of The Idol which was hosted jointly by Czechia and Slovakia. He lives in Prague and contributes to the Czech music scene. The change of the rules for ESCZ, where they (for the first-time ever) allow Slovak-born artists to participate in ESCZ can’t be just a coincidence!
I think he even said he’s interested. The rule change does seem like made with him in mind and with a good song – why not?
Thunder and gloria, does this mean there are mega promising entries in the run?