L’appel à candidatures déjà lancé pour la participation du Luxembourg à l’Eurovision 2026

Applications have opened for artists hoping to be Luxembourg’s next representative at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2026, with anyone interested having two months in which to make their pitch.

The selection process begins on Friday, with the opening of the registration phase for the third edition of the Luxembourg Song Contest.

The selected finalists will perform in the Luxembourg Song Contest at the Rockhal on 24 January 2026, with the winner going on to represent the country at the 70th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest in Austria in May 2026. The exact date and host city for the Eurovision Song Contest will be announced next month.

Interested artists in Luxembourg have until September 21 to register for the auditions leading up to the contest. On the digital platform, they may submit up to three songs or projects, which must not exceed a duration of three minutes and must not have been released or presented publicly before 1 September.

There is no restriction on the choice of language for a song, but “no more than six people are allowed on stage” during the submitted performance, organisers RTL said.

Auditions in October

To be eligible, artists must either have Luxembourgish nationality, have resided in the Grand Duchy for three consecutive years, or demonstrate a strong connection to the country’s music scene.

Other requirements include being at least 18 years old on January 24, 2026, and being readily available between November 2025 and May 2026 to participate in the contest’s preparation and promotion activities.

Registered artists will then be invited to auditions held in October 2025 before a panel of Eurovision experts. The finalists will be announced at the end of October.

In a new feature launched this year, the organisers want to help give members of the music scene an opportunity to build new connections in the industry through a partnership scheme.

“A contact list is now open for Luxembourgish artists who wish to connect with national and/or international songwriters,” RTL said, with the list open until 3 August.

Those who register will then be able to contact one another directly without involvement from the organisers. If these contacts lead to collaborations, they may be submitted at the auditions via the usual process by September 21.

RTL has been organising Luxembourg’s participation in the song contest since the country decided to re-enter Eurovision in 2024, some 31 years after it had last sent a representative.

In both 2024 and 2025, Luxembourg’s representatives made it through the semi-finals to reach the final, which is watched by a global audience of over 160 million.

Last year, Tali placed 13th out of 25 entries with the song “Fighter”. This year’s Luxembourg entry, “La Poupée monte le Son“ was sung by Laura Thorn and was an homage to France Gall’s winning song for Luxembourg in 1965, “Poupée de Cire, poupée de Son”.

Despite a favourable reception from many journalists and social media commentators, Thorn could only place 22nd in a field of 26 finalists in Basel in May.

(This article was first published by Virgule. Machine translated, editing, adaptation and additional reporting by Lucrezia Reale.)