Una voce per San Marino will be back for its second season in early 2023, as Eurovision’s smallest country gears up for its thirteenth appearance at the Contest! National broadcaster SMRTV has now revealed the rules and regulations guiding the 2023 edition. This will only be San Marino’s third national final, having also used UVPSM in 2022, and 1in360 broadcast from Bratislava back in 2018.
UVPSM 2023 will take place over a week in February, and it will be composed of a similar format as the inaugural edition held this year:
- Semi-Final 1 – International Emerging Artists 1 of 3
- Semi-Final 2 – International Emerging Artists 2 of 3
- Semi-Final 3 – International Emerging Artists 3 of 3
- Semi-Final 4 – Sammarinese Emerging Artists
- Second Chance Show
- Saturday 25th February: GRAND FINAL
A total of 60 artists will qualify to these broadcast Semi Final rounds. The big change this year is the lack of a “Big” artists category. In 2022, the Grand Final saw 9 emerging artists meet 9 ‘big’ artists in the Grand Final. That said, SMRTV reserves the right to allow an artist of “particular relevance, notoriety, and with previous important phonographic records” to skip the casting stage and go directly to the Semi Finals.
Anyone interested in representing San Marino at Eurovision 2023 in the United Kingdom can now apply on their website. Applicants will have to perform 2 songs on half-playback and be able to travel to San Marino during the casting and rehearsals phases, some of which start as early as October! Fees range from €100 for those who apply before 29th September and €150 for applications received after, to just €50 for citizens of San Marino. The deadline for all submissions is 20th January 2023. Applicants can read the full rules and regulations before submission.
SMRTV is hoping to improve on its results from the first-ever edition of UVPSM. The 2022 edition of the show went on for weeks, and saw the initial 585 artists who applied as emerging artists slowly get trimmed down after rehearsals, several rounds of semi finals, a second chance round, and an emerging artists final. This left 9 emerging artists in the running for the Sammarinese Grand Final, where they competed against 9 ‘Big’ artists invited to compete by SMRTV.
In the end, invited Italian star Achille Lauro won by just 1 point (making the previous weeks of the competition somewhat irrelevant) with the song “Stripper“. At Eurovision in Turin, Achille turned heads with a performance that will no doubt go down in Eurovision history, however he only came 14th in the Second Semi Final, which was not good enough to secure him a spot in the Grand Final.
Are you excited to see who San Marino will crown as its next Eurovision hopeful? Leave a comment below, or on our socials @escbubble!
