Eesti Laul 2020
ERR has revealed the artists and song titles competing in next year’s Eesti Laul 2020, Estonia’s national selection process for the Eurovision Song Contest. The first semi-final will take place on February 13th, with the second semi-final following on February 15th. Finally, the grand final of Eesti Laul 2020 will take place on February 29th.
In Eesti Laul 2020, the recipe is the same as previous years: 12 songs will compete in two semi-finals where six qualify from each. In the first round of voting the combination score of judges and public voters determine the first four finalists and in the second round scores go to zero and public votes through two more acts. In the final, three super finalists are chosen to proceed to the next round, again the public votes and chose the winner. The running order of the semi-finals will be released closer to the date of the shows.
On 1 September 2019, ERR opened the submission period for artists and composers to submit their entries up until 6 November 2019 through an online upload platform. Foreign songwriters were also eligible to submit songs. A fee was imposed on songs being submitted to the contest, with 25 Euros for Estonian language songs and 50 Euros for songs in other languages. From all 178 songs submitted to ERR, a jury panel selected the 24 songs for the competition, with the selected entries being announced on 13 and 14 November 2019. The selection jury consisted of Andres Puusepp, Anu Varusk, Birgit Sarrap, Daniel Levi, Eda-Ines Etti, Hendrik Sal-Saller, Jüri Makarov, Kaupo Karelson, Lauri Hermann, Madis Aesma, Maiken, Owe Petersell, Sten Teppan and Vaido Pannel.
For those who are familiar with Eesti Laul, a lot of the names in this list will be very familiar; both losing superfinalists from 2019 return in STEFAN and Uku Suviste, with Traffic and Rasmus Rändvee also returning to the competition.
There is also an entry from Laura, who most recently represented Estonia in Kyiv in 2017 alongside Koit Toome, performing “Verona” but failing to make the Eurovision final. She was also part of the group Suntribe who represented Estonia in 2005, and has made numerous solo attempts in Eesti Laul.
Tickets are already on sale. Eesti Laul 2020 will be presented by Karl-Erik Taukar and Tõnis Niinemets.
Eesti Laul, the Estonian selection method, has been in use since 2009. The winners of this institution have awarded some of its most successful entries in the country – including: Urban Symphony (2009), Kuula (2012), La Forza (2018).
Estonia has participated in Eurovision Song Contest 25 times by now, first in 1994. Estonia has participated every year, except 1995. Estonia has managed to qualify to the grand final only 7 out of 16 times.
Estonia has won just once, in year 2001 with the song "Everybody" performed by Tanel Padar and Dave Benton and 2XL. Last May, Victor Crone represented Estonia in Tel Aviv, Israel with the song “Storm” and the performance got 76 points and came 20th.