Only moments after the EBU has announced that the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest is going to take place in Turin next May, Slovenian national broadcaster RTVSlo have started their call for songs for next year’s Eurovision, and published the full rules of their national selection. EMA Freš is going to be back, and EMA 2022 is expanded to three shows instead of one.

EMA Freš

The newcomers’ round called “EMA Freš” is going to be back once again, where a total of 24 newcomers are going to compete for four places that lead to the EMA 2022 semi finals. The 24 acts will compete in daily rounds for four weeks in order to find the best 14 which will compete in two televised shows in January, with seven candidates in each. Two candidates from each show (selected by televoting and jury) will qualify for the semi finals of EMA 2022.

All musicians who are up to 30 years old and have not published more than three songs so far are welcome to enter EMA Freš, and get their chance at competing with the big artists in this year’s EMA 2022.

EMA 2022

All established artists submitting their song are automatically applying to compete in one of the two semi finals of EMA 2022. Out of all the received songs, RTVSlo will select the best 16, who will join the four winners of EMA Freš in this year’s EMA 2022. These 20 acts are going to be divided into two semi finals – each semi final will consist of eight established acts and two winners of EMA Freš.

The best six acts from each of the two semi finals, as voted by the jury and the public, will qualify for the Grand Final of EMA 2012. In the 12-song final, the winner will be decided by a mix of 50% televoting and 50% jury votes. There will be five different jury centers, with five jury members in each.

Applications

All artists are welcome to apply on RTVSlo’s website (click) no later than the 22nd of November. Apart from the standard Eurovision rules, the following rules apply:

• All artists must have turned 16 years old no later than the 1st of February 2022
• All lead artists must have Slovenian residency
• RTVSlo recommends that the submitted entries lyrics are in Slovenian language
• One artist can submit more than one song, but they can qualify for the show with no more than one song

Ana Soklič won the latest edition of EMA held in 2020 with the song “Voda”, and she was internally selected to represent Slovenia in 2021 as well, where she failed to qualify for the Final in Rotterdam with her song “Amen”.