With the infectious rhythm of the Dutch entry for the Eurovision Song Contest, ‘Europapapa’, in our heads, we are looking forward to the Regional Song Contest! After the overwhelming first edition of the festival last November, we are now looking for the perfect candidate to represent our province this year: in Limburg, where the Regional Song Contest 2024 will take place.
“See you next year, in Limburg!” With those words, presenter Stefania closed the show last November in front of a rapturous audience. Just like with the Eurovision Song Contest, it is the winning broadcaster that has the honor of organizing the next edition of the festival. The final will therefore take place this year in the Theater aan het Vrijthof in the Limburg capital Maastricht. The city that narrowly lost the race to host the Eurovision Song Contest tomorrow in 2020, now proudly welcomes the Regional Song Contest.
Great success
All thirteen regional broadcasters are eagerly looking forward to putting on another dazzling show packed with musical talent at the end of this year. The first edition was a great success. Sam & Merijn represented Brabant with their song ‘Cheers to Life’ and finished second. Never before have all regional public broadcasters worked together on such a large-scale event. The final of the Regional Song Contest 2023 was broadcast live on fourteen television channels simultaneously.
Cécile Narinx, editor-in-chief of L1: ”The fact that the Regional Song Contest will be held in Limburg this year is a great honor for our province and our broadcaster. We are going to make it a fantastic show and a big party, together with the other regions and their undiscovered musical talents.”
Preliminaries
Once again this year, each broadcaster will hold its own preliminary round to select its finalist. The form of these preliminary rounds differs. The criteria remain the same: the finalists sing their song (largely) in Dutch or a regional language, they may not have yet had a top 40 ranking and the submitted song may not have been previously released. More information about the Regional Song Contest, the regulations and the 2023 edition can be found at regiosongfestival.nl.
The preliminary rounds at Omroep Brabant will take place in May. You will find more information on omroepbrabant.nl/regiosongfestival as soon as more is known about this. The Regional Song Contest is organized by all thirteen regional broadcasters and is made possible by AVROTROS.
With ‘Cheers to Life’, Sam & Merijn achieved a nice second place at the Regional Song Contest last year: