Belgium: VRT goes ahead for Eurovision 2018

by Stratos Agadellis 1,235 views

The deadline for the countries to provisionally confirm their participation at the 63rd Eurovision Song Contest to the EBU is now over! From now onwards, each participating broadcaster will be on track to plan and coordinate their next steps until choosing their entries for Lisbon. Thus, the next country to confirm that their preparations are underway is Belgium.

VRT’s looking for the best

This year, it’s time for the Flemish-speaking broadcaster VRT to get involved in the Belgian Eurovision participation, as they alternately do every second year with the French-speaking national broadcaster RTBF.

As the Belgian Eurovision site songfestival.be reports, VRT has already appointed a special committee in order to pick up the next Belgian representative. According to the same report, there have already been conversations with several artists who would like to be the ones for 2018. The spokesperson of VRT, Hans Van Goethem has made the following statement:

There are a lot of artists; famous and unknown artists wishing to take part. The most important thing is that a good match is found. Everything starts with the artist. Once that choice is made, we will make it known. It is still too early to say exactly when but we are approaching the completion phase.

Van Goethem also said that initially only one artist is being searched by the broadcaster. The selected hopeful will be working together with the VRT team (committee etc.) to find the most appropriate song and accompanying act.

As the committee will internally select the entrant, VRT may again use their 2012 selection method. That year and after her internal selection, Iris presented her two candidate songs at their Eurosong show and the final result was determined by 100% televoting. However, nothing is yet confirmed, as everything is under consideration.

Belgium at Eurovision 2017

In 2017 , the French-speaking RTBF used an internal selection method, as they usually do. It was the young singer Blanche that was chosen to be their representative in the Ukrainian capital in May. Afterwards, her entry City lights was presented via a brief press conference in early March.

The song became a major radio success in Belgium and Europe and was quickly marked as one of the favorites of this year’s Eurovision. Confirming the predictions, Blanche came 4th at the Grand Final with 363 points and granted her country a third Top 10 result in a row.

Here’s her performance at the Grand Final:

Who should be selected by VRT’s committee in order to continue the recent high placings of the country on the scoreboard?