Spain: RTVE releases the rules and regulations for Benidorm Fest 2022 and opens the submission window

Spain: RTVE releases the rules and regulations for Benidorm Fest 2022 and opens the submission window
Thursday, 30 September 2021

  • The Spanish national broadcaster, RTVE, has released the rules and opened the submission window for Benidorm Fest 2022, the competition that will determine the country's Eurovision 2022 hopeful. 

    The Spanish national broadcaster, RTVE, had announced back in July that it will be switching to a new national selection format that will take place in Benidorm. In order to carry out the selection,  RTVE has reached agreements and teamed up with the Generalitat Valenciana and the Benidorm City Council. 

    Now the broadcaster moves a step further by launching the submission process of the selection and releasing the rules and regulations for the national selection. 

    RTVE has opened the registration period for Benidorm Fest which will select the country's Eurovision 2022 hpeful . For one month, from  September 29 to October 29, 2021,  artists, authors and composers will be able to send their proposal through the participation form, which you can find on the  official website of RTVE or at  rtve.es/benidormfest .

    Along with this call, RTVE will carry out a direct invitation to singers and authors of recognized prestige in the current music scene. The objective of this process is to  guarantee the best possible participating entries in the preselection and to choose a quality song for the  66th edition of Eurovision in Italy. 

     

     

    National selection with four stages

     

    First stage

    The preselection of Spain consists of  four phases. In the  first , those interested can  fill out a form  on the web or be invited directly by RTVE. In both cases, they must  comply with the terms and conditions  of participation in the  Benidorm Fest  and the  Eurovision Song Contest  presented below: 

    •  Performers, groups and authors  over 16 years  of  age can enter the contest on May 1, 2022 -that is, born before May 1, 2006-. In addition, participants must be of  Spanish nationality  or prove  permanent residence  in Spain (in the case of groups, at least  50% of the members  must meet this condition).
    • Singers can only  send a single request  through RTVE.es. In the case of composers, they may submit one theme as main authors, and  two additional ones as co-authors .
    • The songs must be  original and have not been published , performed or distributed, in whole or in part, before  September 1, 2021.  The duration of the song must be a minimum of  2 minutes 30 seconds  and a maximum of  3 minutes;  and include  lyrics in Spanish  and / or  co  - official languages of Spain. Also, songs with fragments in  foreign languages are accepted , as  long as they do not exceed  35% of the text  in that language.
    • The authors who are part of the process may  suggest the artist or group  they consider ideal to perform their song, without the need for this proposal to be binding and the final decision of the performer will fall to RTVE  .

     

    Second Stage

    In the second part of the process,  an RTVE jury  (made up of professionals from the entity and professionals from the music industry) will assess the proposals received and will select the  12 candidates  that will be part of the  Benidorm Fest  (and another six as alternates). A minimum of two proposals registered through the web will participate in the Spanish pre-selection  .

    RTVE will only release  the name of the chosen artists and songs , which will be made public between the months  of November and December.

     

    Third & fourth stage

    Benidorm will host the  last two phases  of the election of the representative of Spain in  Eurovision 2022 . It will be at the  Benidorm Fest , which will be held at the end of January 2022.

     The event will consist of  two semifinals and one final,  the public and a jury of experts (national and international)  will choose the winner by contributing 50% each to the result.  As a novelty, half of the public vote will be decided by a  jury made up  of a sample of the Spanish population selected through statistical and demographic rules. 

    Two semi-finals will be held with six contestants each. The public ( 25% televoting and 25% ' demoscopic' jury ) and the jury ( 60% national and 40% international ) will choose the finalists (the three most voted entries of each round).

    Thus, in the Grand  final show there will be six contestants, one of which will be selected as the country's next Eurovision representative in Italy next May. 

     

     

    The Story of 'Festival Internacional de la Canción de Benidorm'

    The Benidorm International Song Festival was a musical contest that achieved enormous prestige and was organized annually in the city of Benidorm (Alicante) between 1959 and 2006, although it missed its appointment in 1979, 1984 and between 1986 and 1992. It was already based on the Sanremo Festival and was born to promote Benidorm and Spanish music.

    Renowned artists such as the Dynamic Duo, Dyango, Tino Casal, Víctor Manuel, Alazán and Pasión Vega passed through it. Eurovision artists also stepped onto the Benidorm stage, some before and others after their European tour, but all reaping great successes, such as Karina, Betty Missiego and José Vélez. Out of the Eurovision participants that ended up being winners of the Benidorm Festival we have Raphael, Julio Iglesias and La Década Prodigiosa. We also have the case of Coral Segovia, who won the Golden Little Mermaid -the mythical trophy of this Festival- in 2005.

    The last year it was held was in 2006, when precisely La Década Prodigiosa won with the song A ti in the 39th edition of the festival. 

     

    Spain in Eurovision

    Spain participated for the first time in 1961 with Conchita Bautista and has achieved twice to win, in 1968 (Massiel) and in 1969 (Salome). Madrid hosted the contest in 1969 where there was a four country tie in the first place on the final scoreboard.

    Despite not having missed a single contest since 1961 , Spain doesn’t have remarkable results to show the latest years. Exception was Anabel Conde’s 2nd place in  Eurovision 1995 held in Dublin. Spain has came in history 2nd four times ( 1971, 1973, 1979, 1995) while it has finished last 5 times (1962, 1965, 1983, 1999, 2017) from which the first three receiving null points.

    Miki represented Spain at the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 with the song “La venda”. The singer  in 22nd place with a total of 54 points. In 2020  Blas Cantó was chosen internally to represent Spain at the Eurovision Song Contest 2020, with the song “Universo”: Unfortunately the contest was cancelled due to the covid-19 pandemic and Blas never had the chance to perform in Rotterdam.

    However, TVE, invited the Spanish act back for Eurovision 2021 where he performed his entry "Voy e Quedarme" at Rotterdam Ahoy in the Grand final, finishing 24th with 6 points. 

    News Source: RTVE / RTVE 

     Image: Places of Juma