★★★★★ 0/5

Gold Coast to stage Eurovision: Australia Decides

Event to help choose our next entrant will be held in February.

12
Leave a comment

The Gold Coast has landed another TV event with Eurovision: Australia Decides to select Australia’s entrant into Eurovision 2019.

As recently revealed on TV Tonight, SBS is looking for Australia to help choose our representative for Tel Aviv next May.

Outgoing managing director Michael Ebeid said, “We’ve been doing it this way for 5 years and we’re looking at how we can up the ante and mix it up a little bit.

“I would love to get Australians more involved in selecting our artist to represent us. We don’t have the money to do The Voice or Australia’s Got Talent, and it wouldn’t work with an emerging artist.

“But we are looking to do something a bit different with some experienced artists.”

The event follows similar national finals by European nations such as the UK’s Eurovision:  You Decide and Sweden’s Melodifestivalen and Italy’s long-running San Remo Music Festival.

The event will be held at the Gold Coast Convention & Exhibition Centre across February 8th and 9th (the latter is televised). Producers Blink TV will choose a shortlist of songs and match artists. A jury and and TV audience will vote for the winner.

SBS Acting Managing Director James Taylor said: “SBS has been the Australian home of the Eurovision Song Contest for 35 years and 2019 will mark Australia’s fifth year of competing in the event. As our country’s passion for Eurovision continues to grow, we are inundated by fans wanting to have their say in choosing who represents Australia on the world’s biggest stage.

“This will be the first time that Australians can enjoy a Eurovision show live on home soil and we are delighted to begin this next chapter in Australia’s Eurovision journey with our long-term production partner Blink TV and new partners in Queensland – the Queensland Government via Tourism and Events Queensland and City of Gold Coast.”

Australian Head of Delegation and Director of Blink TV Paul Clarke said: “This will be the first time our huge fan base will be able to see a live Eurovision show in an Australian venue – the Gold Coast Convention & Exhibition Centre, as well as live on SBS. We have great plans to make the Gold Coast Eurovision Central in February 2019, so with spandex and sequins at the ready, it will be an awesome show!”

Myf Warhurst said: “In 1994, a band now known as Silverchair won a competition run by SBS’s Nomad program, with support from Triple J, with their hit song Tomorrow – now an Aussie classic. Can we back it up with another worldwide smash hit?

“Eurovision – Australia Decides is a great opportunity for songwriters, both published and unpublished, to show us what they’ve got and for a suite of Australian artists to bring these songs to life on stage in February.”

Joel Creasey said: “I can’t wait to be part of the first ever Eurovision selection show in the Southern Hemisphere and find the next Aussie classic, up there with the likes of Farnsy’s You’re the Voice, Braithwaite’s The Horses or my personal favourite, the seminal debut single from Bardot, Poison.

“It’s over to you Australia – let’s give Europe our best!”

SBS is now accepting song submissions until November 4. There are no restrictions on the number of songs composers and songwriters, both published and unpublished, can submit.

Song must:

be an original work;
have a duration no longer than 3 minutes and a minimum of 2 minutes;
not have been made publicly available;
include vocals;
be submitted on or between 14 October 2018 and 4 November 2018.

Composer(s)/Songwriter(s)

must be Australian citizens or Permanent Residents;
can be published or unpublished;
must agree to grant all rights necessary for the song to be used in the Show and ESC
agree to Terms & Conditions by submitting a song

12 Responses

  3. This will either turn out like Sweden’s Melodifestivalen and be fantastic and unearth some great talent and songs, or will be like the UK’s ‘Eurovision: You Decide’ where basically unknown singers are matched with songs that are manufactured at a ‘song writing camp’ and don’t really suit their style or voice. I hope for the former, but look forward to seeing how it pans out.
    I do worry though that established artists who may otherwise have agreed to represent Australia at Eurovision will baulk at having to progress through a public vote to do so though.

  4. so i’m guess they are out of x factor contestants to compete for us? and it will be a totally unknown singer going to represent us? what makes it more enjoyable for aussies to watch is that we know the singer, they’ve had some success on their own. we are not going to get behind a total random stranger who we have no idea who they are? what about delta goodrem? what about morgan evans?

          1. David, with respect, I’m making this point. If SBS say “with experienced artists” about their Eurovision contestant and Seven say the same about 80 people the country has never heard of – then that should be taken as an indicator about the Eurovision entrant. Diversity of opinion ought be encouraged, and publicist spin called out.

          2. SBS has indicated they want experienced performers who can take on an arena, as story notes. All Together Now uses 100 people so it’s unrealistic to expect it to be full of Farnhams, Minogues & Barnses. It’s actually full of people with years of experience in their discipline and part of the reason Julia Zemiro came on board. Not really sure why we’re comparing them, but there we are.

Leave a Reply