Sixteen acts took part in Slovenia’s national selection show for Eurovision, titled EMA 2018; and, Lea Sirk came out on top with her song “Hvala, Ne!”. The song, in English, means “Thanks, no!”. She’ll be off to Lisbon, Portugal in May, representing Slovenia at the Eurovision Song Contest 2018.
The national final took place yesterday, where she came first in the jury vote with 68 points – far ahead of the others – and came third in the public vote with 48 points. She got a combined total of 116 points, with the public’s top favourite, BQL with “Promise”, coming second with 106 points.
Lea Sirk has previously attempted to represent Slovenia at Eurovision in 2009, 2010, and 2017. She came ninth in 2009, tenth in 2010, and failed to make it through the first semi-final in 2017. It just shows that you will get there in the end if you never give up. She has a bunch of single releases, and released her debut album Roza in 2014.
Watch Lea Sirk Perform Her Eurovision Song “Hvala, Ne!” On EMA 2018 Here:
This is an upbeat track from Slovenia, one that could perform well in Lisbon, Portugal. They need a good placing in the Grand Final, considering they haven’t got through the semi-finals in the last two years. Could Lea Sirk give them their best result? Could she even win the contest and bring Eurovision to Slovenia next year?
To win, she’ll have to get the most votes and there is a lot of tough competition this year. Other acts that have been announced so far are Sennek for Belgium, Saara Aalto for Finland, Waylon for the Netherlands, AISEL for Azerbaijan, Cesar Sampson for Austria, Jessica Mauboy for Australia, Eugent Bushpepa for Albania, Iriao for Georgia, Madame Monsieur for France, Julia Samoylova for Russia, Alfred & Amaia for Spain, Mikolas Josef for the Czech Republic, Ryan O’Shaughnessy for Ireland, Eleni Foureira for Cyprus, Christabelle for Malta, Zibbz for Switzerland, SuRie for the United Kingdom, Rasmussen for Denmark, Ermal Meta & Fabrizio Moro for Italy, Eye Cue for F.Y.R. Macedonia, Franka for Croatia, Netta Barzilai for Israel, Gianna Terzi for Greece, Alekseev for Belarus, Vanja Radovanovic for Montenegro, Sanja Ilic & Balkanika for Serbia, Michael Schulte for Germany, DoReDos for Moldova, AWS for Hungary, Mélovin for Ukraine, and Laura Rizzotto for Latvia.
After Salvador Sobral won for Portugal, last year, with “Amar Pelos Dois”; the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 will be hosted at the Altice Arena, Lisbon, Portugal; with the two Semi-Finals taking place on 8 May and 10 May and the Grand Final taking place on 12 May. A total of 43 countries will compete in the contest.