It has been a traditions that the first act of next year’s Melodifestivalen is being chosen by Sveriges Radio’s talent competition Svensktoppen Nästa, organised by the regional P4 stations around Sweden.

Svensktoppen Nästa is a competition for both established and amateur songwriters and artists around Sweden. Currently, each P4 station in each district is holding its local semifinal, with 25 districts in total. After all 25 winners have been announced, the eight finalists are being chosen by a jury and will be announced in the beginning of August.

The final of Svensktoppen Nästa 2016 will take place in Kungsträdgården in Linköping on 28 August. One of the finalists will go to participate in Melodifestivalen 2017, decided by a separate voting. Hence the winner of the competition, decided by mixture of jury and listeners’ voting, might not be the act that will go to Melodifestivalen, as happened last year.

The selected artist will participate in Melodifestivalen 2017 with a different song, as the rules of the Eurovision Song Contest state that a participating song must not be released for the public before 1 September.

Last year, it was Smajling Swedes (SMILO) who won Svensktoppen Nästa, representing P4 Stockholm, with the song Goosebumps. They went on to finish 5th and almost qualify to the andra chansen round of Melodifestivalen 2016 with their song Weight of the world

Stay tuned to ESCToday for more news regarding Sweden at the Eurovision Song Contest 2017!