2024 Luxembourg Song Contest - National ESC Preselection in Esch sur Alzette

Luxembourg is set to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest 2024 in Malmö, Sweden, returning after an absence of 31 years since its last participation in 1993. The Luxembourgish broadcaster RTL organised the national final Luxembourg Song Contest in order to select the country's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2024, which turned out to be "Fighter" performed by Tali.Show more

Prior to the 2024 contest, Luxembourg has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest thirty-seven times since debuting in its first edition of 1956. The country has won the contest on five occasions: in 1961 with "Nous les amoureux" performed by Jean-Claude Pascal, in 1965 with "Poupée de cire, poupée de son" performed by France Gall, in 1972 with "Après toi" performed by Vicky Leandros, in 1973 with "Tu te reconnaîtras" performed by Anne-Marie David, and finally in 1983 with "Si la vie est cadeau" performed by Corinne Hermès. After a poor result in 1993, Luxembourg was relegated from the 1994 contest in accordance with the new rules implemented at the time, and has since opted to be absent from the event.

On 15 December 2022, it was revealed that the Luxembourgish prime minister Xavier Bettel had instigated discussions regarding the return of the country to the Eurovision Song Contest in 2024, with a team later created by the Luxembourgish government dedicated to ensuring the country's return to the contest. On 12 May 2023, Luxembourgish broadcaster RTL and the European Broadcasting Union officially revealed that Luxembourg would return to the contest in 2024, marking the first Luxembourgish participation in over 30 years.[1] CEO of RTL Christophe Goossens stated the broadcaster was "delighted" to return to the Eurovision Song Contest and to select the 2024 Luxembourgish delegation. On 3 July 2023, RTL announced that the national entry for the 2024 contest would be selected through a televised final.

Luxembourg Song Contest was the competition that determined the Luxembourgish entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2024. The final took place on 27 January 2024 at the Rockhal in Esch-sur-Alzette and was hosted by Désirée Nosbusch, accompanied by Melody Funck, Raoul Roos and Loïc Juchem; Nosbusch had previously presented the 1984 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, the most recent edition to be held in Luxembourg.

The show was broadcast on RTL Télé Lëtzebuerg[5][6] as well as on the broadcaster's radio stations RTL Radio Luxembourg and Radio Today, and online platforms RTL Play and rtl.lu (with the original audio); in addition to this, English-language commentary by Melissa Dalton and Sarah Tapp was available on RTL Play and radio station RTL Today, and French-language commentary by Jérôme Didelot and Violetta Caldarelli on RTL Play and online platform RTL Infos.

The selection was divided in a two-stage audition phase and a televised final, all held at the Rockhal. At the end of the first audition stage, held between July and November 2023, a shortlist of around 70 songs by around 50 artists had been selected by a panel of experts consisting of Sandra Bintz, Eric Lehmann, Jenny Fischbach, Jules Serrig, Sam Steen and chair David Gloesener. The shortlisted entries moved on to a second audition round held between 22 and 24 November 2023, where they were evaluated by an international expert jury – composed of Alex Panayi from Cyprus (chairman), Cesár Sampson from Austria, Christer Björkman from Sweden, Jan Bors from Czechia and Tali Eshkoli from Israel – who selected the finalists. Starting on 21 December 2023 until the final, the competing artists were followed by vocal coaches Susanne Georgi (2009 representative for Andorra) and Francesca Aaen.

At the final, the voting system first consisted of an international televoting round, the top three artists from which moved on to a second round with a 50/50 combination of public and jury votes, determining the winner. The jury was composed of five members for each of eight different countries (namely Belgium, Cyprus, France, Germany, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden and the United Kingdom), for a total of 40 members.

Vicky Leandros and Anne-Marie David and (1972 and 1973 Eurovision winners for Luxembourg) opened the show with excerpts from their winning songs "Après toi" and "Tu te reconnaîtras", respectively, followed by all participating artists singing a rendition of "Poupée de cire, poupée de son" (1965 winning entry for Luxembourg).

Katrina Leskanich (1997 winner for the United Kingdom as part of Katrina and the Waves), Charlotte Perrelli (1999 winner for Sweden), Ruslana (2004 winner for Ukraine) and Alexander Rybak (2009 winner for Norway) performed their winning entries as an interval act during the show; Leandros performed again during the interval, singing her 1967 entry "L'amour est bleu", featuring Alexander Rybak.