The Finnish broadcaster YLE announced yesterday that the final of the Finnish national selection for Eurovision, Uuden musiikin kilpailu (UMK) 2025 will take place on February 8th 2025 in Nokia Arena in Tampere. Ticket sale for UMK25 starts tomorrow, October 3rd 2024, 8.00 CET. The prices of the tickets are between 29,90 EUR and 89,90 EUR. You can get your ticket at lippu.fi/umk
There will be seven finalists in UMK25, and they will be announced a month before the event, January 8th 2025. The competing songs will once again be published on weekdays between January 9th 2025 and January 17th 2025, one song each weekday.
According to YLE, 485 songs were submitted to UMK25, a record during the current format of UMK. This year, there were also some changes made to the selection process for UMK participants. In addition to the professional jury, consisting of the music industry professionals, chaired by YleX’s Head of Music Tapio Hakanen, five audience juries were invited to select the finalists of UMK25. The reason for expanding the juries was a willingness to gain even broader perspective on the final line-up, since the number of high-quality songs submitted to the contest has increased every year.
According to Tapio Hakanen, the quality of the songs submitted to UMK25 amazed the members of all juries, and it was hard to choose the final seven:
This year, it was particularly emotional to go through the huge number of great songs that showed the passion, skill and creativity of Finnish music creators. This season, UMK will see both a great continuation of Finnish pop tradition and a star of the future, waiting for their opportunity to shine bright. We will get to witness energetic band energy, hear German language in an UMK song, dance to the beat of an epic dance banger and be moved by one of the finest ballads in UMK’s history. The line-up is crowned by a song that makes you dance and cry at the same time.
During the 2020’s UMK has been a huge succees a year after another, and the contest has grown every year. Many of the competing songs has become massive hit songs in Finland and UMK has helped many of the finalists to take the next big step in their careers. The success of UMK has also reflected to Finland’s success in Eurovision: Since 2021 Finland has qualified for the final every year and finished in Top 10 twice, in 2021 with Blind Channel’s ”Dark Side” and in 2023 with Käärijä’s ”Cha Cha Cha”.
In 2024 UMK once again broke the previous records, when nearly 20,000 people witnessed the UMK show live at Nokia Arena, 1.9 million Finns watched via TV, and nearly a million international viewers participated in the UMK fever through Yle Areena. The tickets for last year’s live show were sold out in a couple of hours, so if YOU have a desire to witness UMK25 live next February, make sure to set your alarm clock ready tonight so you won’t miss the ticket sale tomorrow morning!
