Jonathan Currinn
News has slowly been trickling in about the Eurovision Song Contest 2020, and rumours have been ripe over the previous weeks about countries who are withdrawing. Finally, the EBU have revealed the list of all the competing countries, which sees Bulgaria and Ukraine make a return after taking a break of a year each, and Hungary and Montenegro withdrawing. This means that there is a total of 41 countries competing in 2020.
We’re sad to see Hungary and Montenegro go, both of them failed to make it through to the Grand Final in 2019, so we are presuming that that was one of their reasons for leaving. Hungary, however, are still running their national selection show, titled A Dal, only the winner will be going on to receive the Petofi Musical Award, opportunities to perform on the main stages of the VOLT and STRAND festivals, promotion on Radio Petofi, and 25 million Hungarian forints to spend on their music career. This was announced in October leading to the rumours of Hungary withdrawing.
As for Montenegro, they have revealed that the decision came down to needing to spend the money on various other things, including investing money into the RTCG fleet renewal. Eurovision, apparently costs them €130,000 to compete, and so we’re sure they’ll be putting that money in good use – including buying cars – and then return next year. Considering their bad performance track – having failed to qualify for the Grand Final for the past four years – we’re not totally surprised by their withdrawal, although we are sad to see them go as some of their entries have been unforgettable.
Returning this year is Bulgaria and Ukraine (although the latter better have changed their representative contract after the controversial contract they wanted MARUV – winner of their national final in 2019 – to sign which led to their withdrawal). Both countries have fared well in recent years, with Ukraine winning back in 2016 with Jamala and her song “1944”. Bulgaria came super-close to winning, the following year in 2017, with Kristian Kostov and his song “Beautiful Mess” which came second. We’re excited to see what these two returning countries will bring to the competition after their one-year break.
Here Are The 41 Countries Participating In The Eurovision Song Contest 2020:
- Albania
- Armenia
- Australia
- Austria
- Azerbaijan
- Belarus
- Belgium
- Bulgaria
- Croatia
- Cyprus
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Georgia
- Greece
- Iceland
- Ireland
- Israel
- Italy
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Malta
- Moldova
- The Netherlands
- North Macedonia
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- Romania
- Russia
- San Marino
- Serbia
- Slovenia
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Ukraine
- United Kingdom
We expect some Eurovision 2020 acts are set to be announced soon; so far we have Blas Cantó for Spain and Hooverphonic for Belgium.
The Eurovision Song Contest 2020 will take place at the Rotterdam Ahoy, Rotterdam, the Netherlands after Duncan Laurence won the 2019 contest with the song “Arcade” where he scored a total of 498 points. The two Semi-Finals will be taking place on 12 May 2020 and 14 May 2020, whilst the Grand Final will take place on 16 May 2020.
