🇪🇸Benidorm Fest 2024: The whole list of the 16 participants on the runway to Malmö finally disclosed

Last night, TVE revealed the names of the 16 artists who will participate in the Benidorm Fest 2024, whose winner will become the representative of Spain in Eurovision 2024.

The presentation took place at the Teatro Alameda in Seville, from where RTVE begins coverage to broadcast the Latin Grammys from the Andalusian city.

RTVE once again chooses Benidorm Fest as the format to select Spain’s representative for Eurovision. The third edition of Benidorm Fest will feature a wide range of musical genres and artists aiming to settle down the musical format, with the winner becoming Spain’s representative at Eurovision 2024.

A glimpse of the artists: The chosen ones from the Benidorm Fest

From the 825 submissions received by RTVE, the public broadcaster has already selected the contestants for the third edition who will take the stage at the grand Benidorm Fest event. The list of contestants has been presented at the presentation sbow of the Benidorm Fest 2024 in Seville:

Until the publication of the songs on December 14th, you can listen to songs from the discography of the 16 artists on our Spotify playlist.

Contest will take place during the last week of January and the first week of February. It will consist of three live broadcast shows during the nights of Tuesday, January 30th (first semifinal), Thursday, February 1st (second semifinal), and Saturday, February 3rd for the grand final.

We already anticipated some of the names in our latest post where we predicted some of the potential names shortlisted for Benidorm Fest such as Jorge Gonzalez, but let’s dig into each of them more carefully and analyse their potential to do a great job on representing Spain in Eurovision Song Contest 2024 in Malmo, Sweden, next May 2024.

Almácor

Arturo Almarcha Corella (26), originally from Alicante, is one of the emerging urban artists of the Spanish music industry. Mixing latin pop with American urban music sounds and raggaeton, he is undoubtedly one of the most exciting names of this Benidorm Fest 2024.

Although his debout wasn’t until 2019, he has been working and writing for big artists such as Nyno Vargas, Ms Nina, Elettra Lamborgini, Aina Da Silva and Mar Lucas. One of his own songs “Pop tech” went viral recently on the Spanish charts, and he recently has disclosed that his Benidorm Fest entry is inspired by the biggest artists such as Harry Styles but from his own musical perspective.

His aims are to go as big as the biggest songwriters and producers in the Latin music industry such as Bizarrap, and Benidorm Fest could be his shortcut to jump onto fame as his song is expected to break all the stream records up-to-date from the Benidorm Fest editions. His song will be targeting the youngest audience, as his music style is majorly streamed by teenagers and youngsters.

Angy Fernández

Angy Fernández (33), originally from Mallorca, is a very familiar face for the Spaniards. Making an early debut in X Factor in 2007 where she came second and gained tons of fans and released her first album that did really well in Spain, she went on pursuing her acting career by being one the main characters of “Física o Química”, a Spanish drama TV series that broke all the records back in the 2010’s.

Her music has been characterised by the pop-rock sounds inspired by the big names such as Sum41, Fall Out Boy or Simple Plan. recently she has been focusing on her acting and musica theatre career, but she’s back in the music industry after an hiatus, stronger than ever, with a song that aims to represent Spain in Malmo, written by a very familiar names on the Eurovision family. Her song is set to be one of the most polished and Eurovision ready as its written by no other than Thomas G:son , writer of Eurovision 2012 winner song from Sweden “Euphoria”, by Loreeen, and Dino Medanhodzic, husband and writer of most of the songs of Dotter, the Swedish Melodifestivalen sensation, who wrote with him “I am what I am” by Emma Muscat, that represented Malta at Eurovision Song Contest 2022 in Turin, Italy.

Eurofans have been asking Angy to be shortlisted for Benidorm Fest for so long, and this is finally the year when their dreams came true. Will be Angy’s lucky year?

Dellacruz

Jorge de la Cruz (31), originally from the Canary Islands, comes to Benidorm Fest after many years of speculations with a fresh and vibing style that promises to bring an addictive and current song that will mix urban and latin sounds that are typical from his music. A big name on the Spanish music industry who has collaborated with and wrote for big names of the Spanish musical history such as Sergio Dalma, Spanish entry at Eurovision Song Contest 1991.

Jorge González

Third time lucky and as anticipated by us in our review post of potential Benidorm Fest 2024 names, Jorge Gonzalez (35), original from Madrid coming form a Romani family, is ready to put Spain dancing to his banger song mixing latin, flamenco and urban sounds with dance-pop all together with a potential dance break reminiscence of Slomo by Chanel.

As said in our post, he tried his luck to represent Spain Eurovision Song Contest back in 2009 and 2017, and this could be the year when he finally gets the opportunity to flying out the red and yellow flag in Malmo.

Lérica

Long-awaited and chart leaders duo formed by Tony Mateo and Juan Carlos Arauzo, Lerica, have been finally confirmed for the runway to Eurovision. Both have a very strong link to Eurovison: Tony Mateo is the brother of Abraham Mateo, who recently had his hit “Clavaito” with Spain Eurovision queen Chanel. Juan Carlos Arauz was part of Eurojunior 2005, the Spanish national final for Junior Eurovision 2005. They met in a musical TV show back in 2014, and since then, they have written, produced and collaborated with major Spanish stars such as Juan Magan, Ana Mena and Belinda.

They are experts on mixing flamenco, latin and raggaeton sounds with Spanish and international catchy and addictive sounds, and every song they write, enters directly on the most viral songs on the Spanish charts, so be ready to dance and throw a party with his Benidorm Fest 2024 song.

Mantra

Mantra, a musical group formed in 2020 comprised by Carlos Marco, Paula Pérez and Charly Weinberg, are one of the top leading artists on the Spanish Spotify charts right now. They are not new to the Eurovision family, as Carlos was behind Xeinn’s team in Benidorm Fest 2022, and Aritz’s “Flamenco” in Benidorm Fest 2023. Carlos was part uf Auryn as well, a boyband who had million of fans in the early 2010s, and that came second at the Spanish national final for Eurovision Song Contest 2011

The group is famous for writing radio friendly fresh pop, mixing Spanish folk sounds with current urban and raggaeton sounds. Their song promises to be an ear worm, and their stage presence and the perfect blend of voices will for sure make of their song an unforgettable one and very competitive one to fight for the ticket to Malmo.

María Peláe

Original from Malaga, Andalucia, María Pelae (33) comes to Benidorm Fest as one of the most loved and favoruites of all the contestants. An expert when it comes to fusing traditional Spanish singing such as flamenco with modern and current electronic and pop sounds, she has been on the Eurovision radar for many years. She wrote with Alba Reig, her partner, the song “Arde” for the Spanish superstar Aitana’s, who defended the entry at the Spanish national final “Operacion Triunfo 2017” for Eurovision Song Contest 2018, that finally came second. Following year with alongside Nil Moliner, she wrote “Nadie se salva” the song that Natalia Lacunza and Miki defended at “Operacion Triunfo 2018” for Eurovision Song Contest 2019.

In June 2023, she won the Rainbow Award from the Ministry of Equality and she has always been an LGBTIQ+ advocate, using her music as a speaker of the community and woman empowerment. Her songs are full of life, Spanish traditional roots, passion and storytelling, making us think her Benidorm Fest 2024 song will include a strong message accompanied by an arresting staging.

Marlena

Marlena (Ana Legazpi and Carolina Moyano) is a girl duo from Madrid who fight with their music for the women rights in every single of her songs. The name comes as a direct link to Eurovision, as ESC2021 winners from Italy, Maneskin, in their song “Torna a casa”, talk about a girl called Marlena.

Although musically very unrelated to Maneskin, their voices blend perfectly together, and their indie-pop songs have been doing quite well in the Spanish music industry recently, coming to the front of the Spanish Indie scene with a national summer tour. Being one of the groups with more followers and monthly listeners, their song promises to be the second part of their hit “Red flags”, one of their greatest hits.

Miss Caffeina

Probably the most famous indie electronic alternative band of Spain, Miss Cafeina (Alberto Jiménez Sergio Sastre and Antonio Poza) after many years of hesitating trying their luck at representing Spain at Eurovision Song Contest, they decided to jump off and take a lead of faith with their mesmerising and addictive music.

They also possess songs in both Spanish and Catalan, and they have a long list of songs and albums on their CV, sitting comfortably on the top of the biggest music festivals line-ups in Spain. They are not new to Eurovision as Alberto Jiménez wrote a song for Agoney (Benidorm Fest 2022 contestant) for the Spanish national final of 2018, “OT 2017”. Their unique sound is taking a turn and they are here to innovate and rebrand themselves in the best possible way by proving to all Europe that they are able to impress both their fans and new listeners with their eclectic and innovative sounds.

Nebulossa

Arising from Benidorm area, María Bas and Mark Dasousa are a synth-pop music duo called Nebulossa fusing electronic and pop sounds from the 80s and characterised by their hallucinating and hypnotic sounds mixed with explicit and very unique lyrics. Even if they are new to the Spanish music industry, they both have separately an extensive music careers on songwriting and music production on the Valencian region.

Last year, they tried their luck at national final from San Marino, this year they are trying their luck at Benidorm Fest. Having reminiscence sounds from Varry Brava (Benidorm Fest 2022), this group is ready to do a major breakthrough on the Spanishn music industry with their Benidorm Fest 2024 tune, as they have recently been nominated for the Pop eye awards as Best New Group.

Noan

Hailing from Zarautz (Basque Country), Noan (25) who resides in Asturias, is a pop-rock emerging music star with husky and soulful voice which are accompanied by melodic and easy-to-listen melodies. Even if he has been mostly working for other artists, he has been releasing lots of collaborations with notorious names of the Spanish music scene such as Paula Koops and Raquel del Rosario (former lead singer of  El Sueño de Morfeo, Spanish entry for ESC2013 in actually Malmo).

He’s no stranger to Benidorm Fest either as he has been working with Vicco and did a punk version of the most streamed song of Benidorm Fest 2022, “Nochentera”. We expect a soft pop-rock song with important meaning from this emerging artist that is set to do really well at local level in the Spanish radio stations.

Quique Niza

With the only song of the competition that came up from the first-ever songwriting camp of Benidorm fest, Quique Gonzalez (Quique Niza as stage name), is a 19year old musical theatre singer from Madrid that seems to come up from nowhere to the Benidorm Fest 2024.

This profile is very similar to Chanel, and he hopes to mimic the luck of the “Slomo” singer by surprising with his talent and promising song at Benidorm Fest 2024. He took part in several musicals, Grease being the most important one. Quique has also starred in a couple of TV series, including UPA Next, where he found out his passion for dancing, singing and acting.

Roger Padrós

Roger (26) original from Barcelona, rose to fame at The Voice Spain 2020 when he made it to the finals. From there, he has been an stablished singer and performer at the famous Casa Batllo. Characterised by his soft voice and always accompanied by his piano, Roger promises to touch Europe’s hearts with his voice.

Roger already released an album in 2022, “La Vida És Millor”, that has beautiful songs all in Catalan.He already cponfirmed his Benidorm Fest 2024 song will be in Catalan, which already makes it differential and unique form the rest. We are sure his song will be a vert special one.

Sofía Coll

Sofia Coll, original from Barcelona as well, is a 24-year old versatile singer, songwriter and performer that has a en extensive career and experience in different stages and TV music shows.

Sofia was put on the Eurovision radar when she took part at Catalan TV3’s talent show “Eufòria”, a music TV show conducted by Miki, singer of “La Venda”, Spanish entry for Eurovision 2019 in Tel Aviv. In the show, Sofía performed Rosa Linn’s “Snap” and Rigoberta Bandini’s “Perra”, two songs tightly related to Eurovsion,

Characterised by her unique voice, easiness to perform flawlessly various music styles, Sofia mixes international pop sounds with Spanish language and electronic, R&B and synth sound inspired by her biggest inspirations. She sings in Spanish, Catalan and English so we can expect anything from her for Benidorm Fest, but she promised to bring pure fantasy to the stage of Eurovision.

St. Pedro

Pedro Hernández (24), originally from Canary Islands, is a singer songwriter stablished in Miami, where we wrote music and learnt a lot about the latin music industry, focusing his songwriting on bachatas, salsa, rancheras and merengue styles.

He also tried his luck at at The Voice 2017, and since them he has been working on his debut album which is expected in the upcoming months. We expect to see him at the Benidorm Fest stage with a song full of latin flavours that will us jump onto the dancefloor.

Yoly Saa

And finally, the last contestant of Benidorm Fest 2024 is the one and only Yoly Saa. Hailing form Pontevedra, Galicia, the (31), With a very unique and strong voice, she grew up listening and singing to bolero ballads. She left her native galicia to try her luck in music in Madrid, where she started busking and then moved to different TV shows and some of her covers went viral online.

She recently joined RTVE’s “Dúos Increíbles”, where she came third with the famous Sole Giménez, an icon of the Spanish music industry. Her ties to Eurovision are not very strong, but she released a song with Funambulista, composers of the Junior Eurovision 2023 Spanish entry for Sandra Valero “Loviu”. According to Yoly, her song for Benidorm Fest 2024 is very much her style but she explores new music genres. We can’t wait to hear her song, as she seems to be a dark horse of this year’s competition.

Mechanism of Benidorm Fest 2024

Benidorm Fest 2024 will have hardly any changes to the voting system. It will be again down to 50% weight through a professional jury (national and international), and the remaining 50% will be divided between public vote and demoscopic voting, 25% each. In case of a tie, the winner will be the act who receives the highest score from the professional jury.

Despite the announcement of the Benidorm Fest artists last Saturday increased media focus, Latin Grammy 2023 gala will be broadcast on November 16th and will be produced by TelevisaUnivision in collaboration with RTVE. The Andalusian city will organise different events between the 12th and 16th, following the announcement of the Benidorm Fest artists, and the artists of Benidorm Fest 2024 will be able to promote themselves at those events.

The Benidorm Fest 2024 is already in active mode, and the news keep coming. Last Saturday, during the artists’ presentation press conference, we were able to find out the date on which we will be able to listen to the songs that the artists will defend on the Benidorm stage.

It will be on December 14th, when we will be able to enjoy the 16 songs that have been chosen for this third edition of the contest. On that date, a press conference will take place to share the first impressions of the artists and RTVE after the initial audience listening session. That day will be the first opportunity for us to hear the 16 songs presented earlier this month in the Teatro Alameda in Seville.

Further information on Benidorm Fest 2024 tickets

The dates for the release of Benidorm Fest tickets have also been made public. Tickets can be purchased through the official store that RTVE will launch. Fans will be able to buy tickets for all the shows along with new official Benidorm Fest merchandising products. In the upcoming weeks, ticket prices will be announced. At the artist presentation event, they confirmed that tickets for the different shows will go on sale in December on the 4th (Semifinal 1), 11th (Semifinal 2), and 18th (Grand Final).

Blanca Paloma won Benidorm Fest 2023 with the song ‘EaEa’ and represented Spain in Eurovision 2023. In Liverpool, she scored a total of 100 points, placing her in the 17th position. Will Spain manage to improve the result in Sweden? We shall wait and see until February to start doing our bettings.