Last week the details of “Benidorm Fest 2023” were revealed by RTVE, the Spanish national broadcaster, and naturally the reveal happened in the Spanish city of Benidorm.
The 2023 edition
The Benidorm Festival of 2023 will consist out of 2 semi-finals and a grand final, just like the 2022 edition. The festival will take place in the “Palau Municipal d’Esports l’Illa de Benidorm” again. The main host of all shows, which are going to be broadcast live on RTVE, will be singer Mónica Naranjo. Next to Naranjo there will be more hosts, but these will be revealed on a later date this year.
Rules for acts to compete
The rules for Spanish acts to compete are the following:
- Songs must be submitted between September 1st and October 10th 2022.
- Solo artists have to be Spanish citizens or they have to be permanent residents of Spain.
- When it comes down to groups at least 50% of the group needs to be based in Spain.
- In case of songwriters, at least one of the songwriters needs to be based in Spain.
- Submitted songs need to be in the official languages of Spain, meaning: Spanish, Catalan, Basque or Galician. 40% of the song can be in a different language, for example, English.
The dates
The dates of the upcoming Benidorm Fest are the following:
- January 29th 2023 – Opening Ceremony
- January 31st 2023 – Semi-Final 1
- February 2nd 2023 – Semi-Final 2
- February 4th 2023 – Grand Final
The format
In the semi-finals 16 acts will perform, and of these half of them, so 8 acts, will take the stage during the grand final.
Voting system
There are no changes in the voting system, it will remain the same as in 2022. During all live shows, so also during the grand final, the results will be decided by a professional jury (50%), a demoscopic jury (25%), and public voting (25%). The professional jury will consist out of Spanish and international professionals of the music industry. Among the upcoming jury members of Benidorm Fest 2023 are:
- Nacho Cano (Head of jury): Cano is the founding member of the world-famous Spanish band Mecano, known from their worldwide hit “Hijo de la luna”.
- Christer Björkman: Björkman is a former Eurovision contestant of Sweden (1992), but he is also the former producer of the Swedish music festival format “Melodifestivalen”, and he has also been the Swedish Head of Delegation.
Side-show and spin-off
The Benidorm Fest of 2023 will also have a daily side-show during the week the festival takes place, and it will even have a spin-off show during Christmas 2022.
Bigger audience
The Benidorm Festival 2023 will have a bigger audience, because the venue of the festival will expand its capacity so that more audience members can witness the live shows. This Summer it will become known when tickets for the festival will become available; there has been revealed that tickets will cost between 20 and 60 euro.
We cannot wait
We cannot wait for Benidorm Fest 2023 to start! The upcoming edition seems to be even bigger and better than its predecessor, so that sounds like music to our Eurovision ears!
When there are updates, we will inform you, so for all things Eurovision, keep it ESCplus International!