Hello everybody, this is Ljubljana calling! The small country of Central Europe is next to confirm that they will be embarking on the Eurovision train which will take us to the Netherlands come May. In keeping with their tradition, the Slovene broadcaster has opted for holding its annual national selection event Evrovizijska Melodija (EMA), most likely in the first months of 2020.

EMA FREŠ: On the road to EMA 2020

This year saw one of the most successful result for Slovenia in recent years, with the 15th place of the young singers Zala Kralj & Gašper Šantl and their calm ballad Sebi. Hence, RTVSLO decided to introduce an interesting change to the next EMA edition, which will contribute to further promotion of the young music talents of the country.

The newly-launched EMA FREŠ is aimed at young artists under the age of 26, who have officially released from 0 to 3 copyrighted songs so far. The candidates of this special category may submit a 1-minute long video of a performance by 19 September. Following that, a multi-stage process begins!

The Slovene broadcaster will start posting tracks/recordings on its official website, as well as other social networks on a daily basis, while a public voting process will be running. The daily winners will then proceed to a weekly contest. Each week’s winners will enter an elimination competition with multiple rounds. The overall winner will join the final participants of EMA 2020 as a wildcard.

What about the other candidates?

All artists who are over 26 years old or have already released more than 3 singles are welcome to apply for participation at EMA 2020 by 18 November. Applications are made online on the official RTVSLO platform. In the sequel, a special appointed committee will then determine the ones that will fight for the Slovene Eurovision ticket by taking part at EMA 2020.

The complete list of the competing entries is expected to be revealed in December 2019 or later.

Slovenia at Eurovision 2019

Slovenia saw their 25th Eurovision participation at this year’s Eurovision in Tel Aviv, Israel. Their national selection event EMA 2019 crowned the young artists Zala Kralj & Gašper Šantl as its winners, among 10 finalists.

With the ballad Sebi, they managed to make it through to the final and achieve a 15th place, the second best result for the nation in the current decade. They collected 105 points in total.