Iceland: RUV confirms Eurovision 2022 participation and opens submission window

Iceland: RUV confirms Eurovision 2022 participation and opens submission window
Friday, 03 September 2021

  • The Icelandic national broadcaster, RUV,  has confirmed that it will participate in the 66th edition of Eurovision Song Contest next May in Italy. 

    RUV has confirmed to ESCToday that the country will be returning in the 2022 edition of Eurovision, joining the group of nations that will be present next May in Italy. 

    The Icelandic hopeful will be determined once again via Söngvakeppnin, after a break of one year. The show will unfold in February with 10 contestants taking part and smilar to previous year the selection will consist of two semi final shows and a grand final. 

    Each semi final round will see five acts competing for two spots that lead to the final, determined exclusively by the public verdict. One more spot will be determined by the judges panel, which means the grand final show will feature five contestants. In the final two contestants selected 50% by jury voting and 50% by televoting, will advance to a Superfinal round in which televoting will decide which one will travel to Italy. 

    RUV has released the 2022 Songvakeppnin  rules and regulations  according to which interested acts and composers should send in their applications and songs until  6 October 2021. 

     

    Iceland in Eurovision 

    The Nordic country, which debuted in Eurovision in 1986, was only absent at two editions of the contest, in 1998 and 2002, and that was due to low rankings that its entries received. It is the only country from the Scandinavic ones not to have won the contest, despite its best results  in 1999 with Selma and in 2009 with Yohana, when the country finished in the 2nd place

    In 2018 Iceland last year was represented by Ari Ólafsson and his entry Our Choice. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it to the grand final which was the consecutive  fourth time the country failed to qualify.In 2019 Söngvakeppnin 2019 winner, the group Hatari flew the flag in Tel Aviv and performed on stage Hatrið mun sigra, which qualified to the final where it came 10th with 232 points.

    This year Daði & Gagnamagnið won the Icelandic national final, Söngvakeppnin 2020, and were set to represent the nation with their entry “Think About Things” . Although the contest was cancelled due to the covid-19 outbreak the Icelandic acts will had the chance to complete their Eurovision journey in 2021 with a new song. 

    In 2021 Daði & Gagnamagnið defended the Icelandic colors in Rotterdam performing '10 Years' which finished in the honorable 4th place of the Grand final.  

     

    News Source: ESCToday

    Image: EBU / THOMAS HANSES