Iceland: National final to take place on February 29

Iceland will be present at the next eidtion of Eurovision and will be selecting its next Eurovision rerpesentative through the national selection of Söngvakeppnin.

As expected the Icelandic broadcaster revealed that it will be competing in the forthcoming Eurovision Song contest while Söngvakeppnin will be once again the mechanism through which the country will determine its Eurovision act. 

The national selection will consist of two semi final rounds and one grand final. Semi final heats are to set to take place on 8 and 15 February while the Grand final will be held on February 29 . From each sem final round two contrstants will qualify to the final but the Icelandic broadcasters has reserved the right to  add one more candidate to the final . During the semi finals all competing songs should be performed in Icelandic language but in the final in the language they will be presented on the Eurovision stage in case of winning the national final.

Söngvakeppnin was held first time in 1986, the year the country debuted in Eurovision. Since then it has become the traditional national selection format all the following year except 1995- 1999 and in 2005.

THE STORY SO FAR

The Nordic country, which debuted in Eurovision in 1986, was only absent at two editions of the contest, in 1998 and 2002, and that was due to low rankings that its entries received. It is the only country from the Scandinavic ones not to have won the contest, despite its best results  in 1999 with Selma and in 2009 with Yohana, when the country finished in the 2nd place

In 2018 Iceland last year was represented by Ari Ólafsson and his entry Our Choice. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it to the grand final which was the consecutive  fourth time the country failed to qualify.

This year Söngvakeppnin 2019 winner, the group Hatari flew the flag in Tel Aviv and performed on stage Hatrið mun sigra, which qualified to the final where it came 10th with 232 points.