San Marino will kick off their debut Eurovision national selection next week, in which 11 artists will be competing for the right to represent the micro-nation in Lisbon. Ahead of the selection kick off, 1 in 360 has unveiled more details about the bidding entries.

Only 7 days to go until the first show of the Sammarinese national selection takes place in the Slovakian capital of Bratislava. Eleven acts will be competing to represent the country at Eurovision 2018, making for an interesting international selection process.

Sticking with the international theme, the debut Sammarinese national selection has seen the build-up and production taking place in many a country around Europe.

1 in 360, a London-based company, is behind the micro-nation’s selection for 2018 in collaboration with the Sammarinese broadcaster, SMRTV. The crew and bidding artists have since flown to the Austrian capital of Vienna for the song writing camp and rehearsals, before flying to Bratislava for the selection.

Peek into the bidding songs

Ahead of next Friday’s first show, 1 in 360 has unveiled some details regarding the bidding songs set to compete in the Sammarinese national selection, each of which were written and produced during the Viennese song writing camp.

Songwriters, producers and candidates collaborated in order to find the potential Eurovision 2018 entries, with Austria’s former 2016 representative – Zoë – receiving song credits for all but 2 bidding songs.

1 in 360 unveiled more details via their Facebook page:

In the interest of transparency and because some of you asked, a few words on how the songs were written: We didn’t give the candidates pre-manufactured songs. Instead we conducted a songwriting camp in Vienna, for which we prepared a few chords and melodies. Our songwriters, producers and the candidates themselves then collaborated to turn them into finished songs. As a result, we’ve got a lot of songs with multiple songwriters (several have five songwriters). Zoe Straub, one of the judges, actively participated in the camp and has credits on all but two of the songs. The same is true of other members of the 1 in 360 creative team. And the same is also true of the candidates. About half of them have credits on one or more songs. The most active singer songwriter was Jenifer Brening, who received credits on four songs. We’ll publish the full list of songwriting credits in due course.

A full list of bidding songs and songwriters will be unveiled in due course.

San Marino’s national selection for Eurovision 2018 kicks off next Friday with the first show of the competition, with the final of the event taking place the following month on the 3 March.

Ahead of next week’s kick off, meet the candidates looking to represent the nation in Lisbon this coming May!

Sammarinese national selection schedule

• 09/02: Show 1
• 16/02: Show 2
• 03/03: Grand final