The city of Barcelona has withdrawn its bid to host the 2024 Junior Eurovision Song Contest.

RAC 1 broke the news earlier today that Barcelona will not host the 2024 edition. Sources have claimed that the withdrawal comes due to a lack of available venues. Both potential arenas – the Palau Sant Jordi and the Sant Jordi Club are not available to host during November. Since the arena needs to be available for at least one month for stage construction and rehearsals – it would be logistically not possible to host the show in these venues. The pavilions of Fira Barcelona are also not logistically capable of hosting the event due to the columns and the height of the ceiling.

This means that the only cities officially in the running to host the event are Granada, Valencia and Malaga. However, Spanish fans are also expecting the city of Madrid to be in the running. The host city of Junior Eurovision is expected to be announced before the final of Eurovision. In fact, this time last year we already knew that Nice would host the 2023 edition.

Last year, the contest winner was France. However, after hosting the event twice in the last three years, the French broadcaster decided to decline on hosting duties. Therefore, the event went to Spain as they came runners up of the 2023 contest with Sandra Valero and her song ‘Loviu’.