Estonia | It's All Change As Details Emerge Of A Bigger Eesti Laul
Last year, Estonia qualified for their first Eurovision grand final since 2015. With this success, how would the national broadcaster for Estonia top that? Today, ERR has answered this by releasing new details of their national final, and yes, they have gone for some major changes.
It was known last year that there would be a new head of delegation for the 2019 season, and two months ago it was announced that Tomi Rahula would be that man. The former Eesti Laul performer, and song writer has appeared on Estonian television earlier, giving details of how the competition to select the Baltic nations song would be changing.
The first major change to be announced is that there will be now twenty four songs competing for the honour of representing Estonia in 2019. These artist will be split up in to two semi finals consisting of 12 participants in each round. Only six singers will go forward to the grand final, with each show being broadcast live.
The grand final will be held in the nations capital of Tallinn, but Tomi has announced that the semi finals will travel around the country, for the first time. This has proved very successful in other countries such as Sweden.
As a new head of delegation, the former Eurovision song writer is keen to put his stamp on Eesti Laul as he has also introduced several other changes which consist of songwriters outside of Estonia being allowed to enter. This is a first, and comes at a cost where a fee of 25 Euros would have to be submitted for entries in Estonian, whilst other languages, the fee would be doubled at 50 Euros.
The twenty four competing songs are expected to be released in December, whilst the national final is expected to begin mid February, instead of the usual March.
Last year the country had their best result in a long time by achieving a respectable 8th place when Elina Nechayeva sang "La Forza", scoring 245 points. What do think of these changes? Please tell us your thoughts in the comments below.
Last year, Tural, our man in Estonia, was there at Eesti Laul 2018 and interviewed Elina. Check it out below:
