Just a few days ago the pre-season of the Eurovision 2018 in Lisbon lived its first drama moment. Despite some rumours concerning Saara Aalto being contacted by the BBC for a possible participation in Lisbon, we now know that the 30-year old singer will be on stage next May… representing her home country Finland.
This morning Finnish broadcaster YLE announced that the tickets for Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu 2018 (UMK 2018) are finally on sale!
UMK 2018 will be aired on 3 March 2018 from the Metro Aarena in Espoo. Finnish viewers and the international jury will select the song Saara Aalto will perform in Lisbon.
YLE will release the three competing songs and their music videos in the spring of 2018. Former Finnish representative Krista Siegfrids and producer Mikko Silvennoinen will host the show.
This is the first time that only one artist has been directly appointed to represent Finland at Eurovision. Over the past sex years, YLE has been pursuing a Eurovision representative through an open selection process. Behind the reform of UMK there is the goal to obtain a better result in the contest.
Finland at Eurovision
Finland debuted in the Eurovision Song Contest back in 1961, entering the contest 51 times. The one and only victory for the Scandinavian country came in 2006 with Lordi‘s Hard Rock Hallelujah.
Since the introduction of the semi-finals in 2004, Finland has failed to qualify seven times, including the past three straight editions.
In 2017 in Kiev, the country was represented by the duo Norma John with the song Blackbird. Despite a very solid live performance, they failed the access to the Grand Final finishing 12th out of 18 acts in the semi-final.
Watch again the moment when Saara Aalto was announced as Finnish representative for the Eurovision in Lisbon:
