The deadline to submit songs to Benidorm Fest 2024 — Spain’s national selection for Eurovision — has now passed. And when the clock struck midnight late on Tuesday, producers learned that they’d received a total of 825 songs “in all styles.” Those songs arrived over the course of 147 days.
Those 825 songs represent the breadth and depth of musical culture within Spain. Producers say they received the largest number of musical styles ever. “There are several proposals for reggaeton, trap, urban and electronic music, genres that were not predominant in previous years,” they write. “In addition, there has been an increase in the number of proposals in co-official languages.
Spain, you’ll note, has four co-official languages on top of Spanish. They are: Catalan/Valencian, Galician, Basque, and Aranese.
The overall number of submissions is the lowest they’ve received since re-launching the festival ahead of Eurovision 2022. Last year it received 876 submissions.
But RTVE’s team knows how to spin, so they’ve been celebrating a “record” year. That’s because they received 825 proposals through the web submission form. Last year they received 455 songs through that channel. Apparently teams left it late. “Nearly 200 songs were submitted in the last 24 hours before the deadline,” producers say.
The broadcaster is also celebrating that all of the submissions “have been presented with a complete set of singer and song.” So the folks at RTVE won’t need to spend any time playing matchmaker. Last year, more than 300 of the 876 submissions were sent without a performer attached.
This year Spain organised a special songwriting camp that brought together Spanish and international songwriters. Twenty-three of the submissions come from that camp.
RTVE’s committee of experts are currently working their way through the entries. Sixteen will ultimately advance to Benidorm Fest, which will stage its semi-finals on January 30 and February 1, with the final to follow on February 3.
RTVE will reveal the participants on November 11 in Seville as part of the Latin Grammys which will take place there.