On March 3rd it will be decided who will represent Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest. The first will broadcast "Eurovision Song Contest 2023 - Our Song for Liverpool" on March 3rd from 10:20 p.m. live from Cologne. Fans can also follow the preliminary round on ONE, Deutsche Welle, eurovision.de and in the ARD media library. The latter two will get in the mood for the show with a warm-up from 9:20 p.m. Who is participating and how does the voting work?
According to the starting order, TRONG (30) starts the evening. The musician from Bad Kissingen in Bavaria has Vietnamese roots and successfully took part in the "Vietnam Idol" talent show in 2015. His nu-disco song "Dare To Be Different" is about the confidence to stand up for yourself. 28-year-old singer René Miller competes with the song "Concrete Heart" about a toxic relationship.
It continues with Anica Russo (22), she wants to travel to Great Britain with "Once Upon A Dream". The singer-songwriter from Berlin was already a supporting act for Ariana Grande and Alan Walker. Lonely Spring is a little tougher. The band around the twin brothers Jules and Simon as well as Manu and Matthias from Passau want to convince supposed outsiders with their pop-punk contribution "Misfit".
Singer-songwriter Will Church (28) comes from Berlin and wants to represent Germany with "Hold On". The song is intended to encourage everyone who is at risk of collapsing under pressure from society or their own. Patty Gurdy comes up with a Celtic folk-pop song called "Melodies Of Hope". The 26-year-old, who has dedicated herself to the hurdy-gurdy, is already a fixture in the genre. Now she wants to convince the ESC too.
Eight of the nine participants were selected by the NDR ESC editors together with an advisory team of national and international music experts. Ikke Hipgold (46), on the other hand, qualified through a TikTok vote. Matthias Distel, his real name, could compete for the first time with a party hit for Germany. "Song with good lyrics" is his contribution. Frida Gold ("Show me how you dance") is one of the best-known participants in the preliminary round. Alina Süggeler (37) and Andreas Weizel present their song "All women in me are tired", a song about all women.
The band Lord Of The Lost comes from Hamburg and was founded in 2009. The musicians, who move between industrial rock and gothic metal, want with their song "Blood
Online voting runs until March 3 at 10 p.m. Anyone who votes has one vote and can cast it accordingly for a candidate or band. On the evening of the preliminary decision, the votes from the televoting (calls and SMS) are added. Both public votes account for 50 percent of the decision.
The other 50 percent of the points are awarded by eight juries in eight different countries, each consisting of five people: points from 1 to 12 are awarded from Switzerland, the Netherlands, Finland, Spain, Lithuania, Ukraine, Austria and Great Britain .
Presenter Barbara Schöneberger (48) presents the live show and welcomes some celebrities to her talk sofa. Ilse DeLange (45) will take a seat there and also perform the joint single "You" with The BossHoss. Florian Silbereisen (41) will also sit on the sofa.
The hit star himself was part of the jury for the 2017 ESC preliminary decision. As a self-confessed fan of the Eurovision Song Contest, Riccardo Simonetti (30) shouldn't be missing either. The winner of last year's preliminary round, Malik Harris (25), completes the round
The final of the ESC 2023 will take place in Liverpool on May 13th. The semi-finals will take place on May 9th and May 11th. The event will be held this year under the slogan "United by Music". The Ukrainian band Kalush Orchestra won last year, but the event was moved to the UK due to security concerns and planning uncertainties due to the war in Ukraine. The Brit Sam Ryder (33) took second place in 2022.
