Once again the interest in Melodifestivalen from the Swedish music industry is high!

Yesterday evening the deadline for sending in songs for Melodifestivalen 2018 passed and Swedish broadcaster SVT have announced the number of songs having been sent in this year: 2771! This is the highest amount of songs since 2012 and 293 songs more than last year. Out of these songs 447 were sent in via Allmänhetens Tävling (Public Contest), the way to go for songwriters who have not released music professionally before.

Contest Producer and Swedish Head of Delegation Christer Björkman is happy with the interest and says:

We are really excited to start with the selection process and are supercontent with the fact that the interest from both the general public and the music industry is continuously high.

Soon the selection process will begin and will be led by Karin Gunnarsson, who is vice-Contest Producer for Melodifestivalen.

When the jury has found 14 songs, SVT will take over and will find 14 other ones to complete the field. One of those 14 ”SVT places” is already reserved for Stiko Per Larsson, who won this right by being picked from the radio contest P4 Nästa. This won’t be with the same song he participated in P4 Nästa with as the Melodifestivalen songs can’t have been released before.

The song titles, their composers and performing artists will be revealed later this fall.