This morning, at 8:59, the submission deadline for Melodifestivalen 2016 closed. After the closing it became clear that 2450 have been submitted, of which 1982 songs to ordinarie tävling (”regular contest” for established composers, those who have had previous work released officially) and 468 songs to allmänhetens tävling (”public contest” for people who haven’t had previous work of them released officially). The number of submitted songs is 273 above that of last year.

Christer Björkman, executive producer for Melodifestivalen, attributes the high number to what he calls ”the ESC-effect”. He has high ambitions this year and hopes to achieve a win on home soil next year. But there’s still a way to go, because what’s going to happen first is that a jury is gonna evaluate all the songs that have come in and pick 14 of them. There has been a new rule this year that states that the songs from ordinarie tävling and allmänhetens tävling go into the same pool, so the jury gets to pick from all the songs available.
Then SVT will pick 13 acts they would like to see in Melodifestivalen, wether those songs are from the pool that has come in or composers/artists they have invited themselves.
One place has already been reserved for the act that a jury chose from the Svensktoppen Nästa contest and which turned out to be Smajling Swedes. They complete the total of 28 entries in Melodifestivalen.

Later this autumn, SVT will present the titles of the chosen songs and their respective composers.