Tonight, the 2008 national final season of the Eurovision Song Contest will be officially opened: the first semi final of the Icelandic national final will be held. Three songs will be presented and the best one – chosen by televoting – will reach the final to be held on 16th February. The fans might be very delighted that there will be a webcast!
The show
The show will start at 22:15 CET (20:15 local time). The results will be revealed in the second part of the show at 23:40 CET (21:40 local time; there is a difference of two hoursinstead of one because there is no DST in Iceland).Egill Eðvarðsson will host the program.
Although the winners will be chosen by televoting, there is also a jury that comments on the songs. One of the jury members will be Selma who represented Iceland twice in the Eurovision Song Contest: in 1999, she achieved second place (Iceland's best result so far) with All out of luck; in 2005 she didn't manage to qualify through the semi final with If I had your love.
You can read more about the selection procedure here.
Webcast
Last year (well, this year actually), the Icelandic webcast proved to be very steady so you probably don't have to expect any problems. Follow the webcast here.
The songs
Unfortunately, the participant(s) in the first semi final have not been revealed yet but you should stay tuned for the line-up!
In 2005, 2006 and 2007, Iceland did not manage to reach the final of the Eurovision Song Contest although the country was sometimes quite close finishing 16th, 13th and again 13th in the semi final respectively. Iceland will havetake part in one of the semi finalsin Belgrade.
