San Marino: 45 new artists – including many from Sweden – have already applied for a national final
San Marino – 34,000 inhabitants – is facing an uphill to find just that one singer for Eurovision. This partly explains their tendency to call on the same singers – Valentina Monetta, Serhat, Senhit – repeatedly.
Although we are all fans of their recurring artists, it is amazing that the microstate is doing its best to present new talent with its very international national selection A Voice for San Marino.
The transmitter is so enthusiastic about what they have released an update three days after launch, explains that there have already been 45 registrations.
About 40% of the applications were submitted from abroad by emerging artists, “and mostly from Sweden.” That makes sense. Sweden regularly receives approximately 2,500 entries for its national final Melodifestivalen (and for only 28 places in the competition). This makes the mountain very high to climb for people without record companies or established names.
The competition is open to both emerging artists and established artists, with a 50/50 split between the two groups. These competitors can come from any country – San Marino or abroad.
San Marino celebrates A Voice for San Marino applications
Emerging artists enter through the open application process. The broadcaster will hold two casting periods in December and January, where the emerging artists will be judged at live auditions.
From there, about 40 listed new artists will compete in four semi-finals, a second chance round and a final, which will be held at Teatro Titano. The acts will perform a cover of a well-known song and present their choice of song that has not been released. The top nine acts will qualify for the overall grand final. These programs will all be broadcast on SMRTV.
The files in the category of established artists do not have to audition. Rather, nine artists will be invited by the competition organizers to compete directly in the grand final (much like the pre-qualified artist part of Norway’s national final in recent years).
Eighteen artists – nine new and nine established – will compete in the grand final. Acts will perform the intended song for a possible Eurovision entry. Songs can be performed in any language.
Initial applications are free, but documents that pass the audition stage must pay an entrance fee of 30 euros (before 30 November) or 50 euros (after that date).