The very beginning
What Is Melodifestivalen?
Melodifestivalen is Sweden’s epic marathon to select one act to represent the nation in the Eurovision Song Contest. It is an institution, and since the switch from a one night showdown to a multi-week touring circus in 2002 it has grown to be the biggest pure National Final on the continent and the biggest television event in the country. The six Melodifestivalen shows regularly feature in the top 10 most watched TV shows in the nation – usually comfortably above even our Song Contest.
This week the show is on the front pages of glossy magazines and supermarket advertisements as everybody tries to get a piece of the pie. It is the Swedish Superbowl, complete with extravagant half-time shows, fanatical fans supporting their side, and a liberal use of shoulder pads.
When is it on and how can I watch it?
The show fills the primetime slot for Saturday night family entertainment, starting at 20:00 CET for six weeks running. It is broadcast on the flagship channel, SVT 1, as well as being broadcast on Sveriges Radio.
For international viewers SVT Play is your home for the shows.
Also worth mentioning is the app Mello United, designed for tablets with versions on Apple and Android. This app has the purpose of allowing people to watch ‘together’ despite being in different locations.
Where Are They Holding The Show This Year?
Thankfully two years of pandemic life restricting the show to Stockholm are over. This year the tour rotates around Malmö, Gothenburg, Växjö, Eskilstuna and Karlstad for the five heats. The final is once again at Friends (soon to be renamed Strawberry) Arena – the national football stadium of Sweden where 30,000 were set to watch the culmination of this epic road trip.
The view from the back of Friends Arena during the 2014 Melodifestivalen Final
About The Show
What is the competition format?
This year sees a small tweak to the show’s format. The number of competing songs increases from 28 to 30, and these are divided up into five different heats featuring six songs each. Of those 30 half of the entries were chosen by a panel of experts and members of the public by the Swedish public broadcaster SVT. The other half were selected by SVT without the help of their assembled panel. SVT ensures there are a variety of genres, songs that are hits in both the English and Swedish languages and a minimum that half of all the songs have a female songwriter in their team.
The voting system used this year gives automatically qualification to one song in each heat that receives the highest number of votes. The remaining five songs go into another voting round, where the winner receives another ticket to the final. Songs placing 3rd and 4th in this round head over to a final qualification round that takes place in an extended edition of the 5th heat. In total two songs go through from each heat and two more from the final qualification round. The mathematics of that final round is a touch complex, we will come back to that in a separate article nearer the time.
The voting in the twelve song final has one further added dimension and that is the addition of a jury made up of representatives from 8 other Eurovision competing nations, to add to the public vote Eurovision style, 50% jury/50% public.
How can I vote?
There is a traditional phone vote, meaning that you can ring up the number that appears on screen to support your favourite. When you do this you can pay a 3,60 kr rate or a 9,90 kr fee. It may seem obvious to choose the cheaper rate, but the more expensive number donates the money to Radiohjälpen – the fundraising arm of the Swedish broadcasters.
However, voting through traditional telephones is only one-eighth of the total from the public vote. The rest of the public vote is cast through the Melodifestivalen app, with voters split into seven groups based on their age – the youngest group is for those aged 3 to 10! On the app you can vote for your favourite performances during the show and unlike the televoting it is absolutely free to vote this way. Voting via the app began in 2015 and has been incredibly more popular than was anticipated – in last year’s final over 23.5 million votes were cast.
More app votes resulted in a stronger heart symbol on screen during the previous editions of Melodifestivalen. Nowadays the heart beats a different colour depending on which age groups increase their voting activity
23.5 million votes? How is that possible?
Good spot. Sweden is a country of 10 million people and perhaps a better figure to give here is the number of voters – which was just under a million last year. From a television show perspective that level of audience engagement – you are looking at over 25% of all people watching casting a vote – a level of audience participation which SVT suggested was at world record levels.
The reason the number of votes were so high is that via the app one received five free votes per song, and there are plenty of stories each year of children wanting to give everybody a five star rating.
When do we hear the songs?
The songs in Melodifestivalen are kept as a secret until the Saturday night show. Except you are given every single piece of information about the song, except the song itself, to give you a taste of what to come. SVT’s Mellopedia project where, at the start of each competition week, the lyrics about the song get published complete with geeky facts about the number of camera shots and the props on stage.
This year on Tuesday the assembled media are treated to the delights of a Teams call where studio versions of the songs are played. The songs can’t be shared, but they can be written about by the 30-odd or so press that attend. On Thursday tantalisingly short clips of the songs are publicly made available, and on Friday a snippet from the stage show is presented as well. This year they both happen at 0700 CET.
Look out too for a key stat on Friday’s when a paying public will hear the songs for the first time at the rehearsal and the Swedish branch of OGAE runs an audience poll to see who they liked most.
Even after the show these songs are heavily protected. The show itself will only be viewable on SVT Play, the broadcasters on-demand service, for two days after each heat, and any song that qualifies directly to the final can’t be released commercially until after the fifth heat has finished. That means qualifiers from the first month must wait a whole 28 days before putting their song on Spotify.
What styles of songs compete?
The list of 30 artists in 2024 spread around a wide variety of genres. We will have ballads, rock, Afrobeats and more aiming to capture the hearts of the nation.
In recent times it is little surprise that pop music has dominated, with Sweden being a powerhouse nation for pop music exports in the 21st century. The three Swedish winners of the Eurovision Song Contest this past decade, ‘Euphoria’, ‘Heroes’ and ‘Tattoo’, are fantastic examples of the huge production values, both musically and visually, Sweden brings to the table. It is this success that has inched Sweden to seven Eurovision victories and now level with Ireland at the top of the medal table.
However in the past the genres that dominated Melodifestivalen were more native, that of the schlager and dansband variety. Indeed before Melodifestivalen got its name it was known as Eurovisionschlagern – svensk final. There are promises of schlager and dansband in the 2024 edition as well.
What is this schlager I keep hearing about?
The term schlager is still a phrase used in mainly Germanic speaking nations to talk about a hit song. What often makes one define a song as a schlager would be traits that are classic to the Eurovision Song Contest, a clappable beat, a catchy sing-a-long melody and lyrics that sound grandiose but in reality are as fluffy as a bunny. Another tradition certainly through the 2000s was to have a key change before the last chorus, although that hasn’t necessarily been the case in recent years.
Dansband is often treated as a sub-genre of schlager. With more of a swing element, dansbands traditionally travel across small towns in the country of the summer performing in open-air concerts where the audience grabs a partner and spins around in merriment.
In Sweden though it is commonplace for songs written for Melodifestivalen to generally be described as schlager. There is something about the three minute time limit, the need for infectious hooks and the performance element of Melodifestivalen songs that mean despite the rap, rock or another genre there is a flavour of schlager and that performance element hidden within almost every competing track.
Melodifestivalen FAQs
What’s The Point Of The Final Qualification Round?
A valid point raised is that for those songs which finish 3rd or 4th in their heat there is little chance of winning Melodifestivalen, so why is there an extra round for these entries to win, to ultimately lose?
Firstly there is no guarantee of that not happening. There has been a second chance round since the tour began in 2002 and the 2013 winner Robin Stjernberg won the entire show after finishing a distant 3rd place in his heat. His victory that year was aided by a comfortable lead he scored from the juries that vote in the final – meaning despite not winning the televote (though he finished 2nd with that with more votes than other songs in his heat) he represented the nation in Malmö.
Secondly it also offers a different path to victory and success. As said before those songs that qualify directly to the final can’t be commercially released until after heat five has finished – but that limitation does not apply to songs not qualifying directly to the final. Melodifestivalen is such a big part of the music industry here that there’s much expectation that a song even finishing 4th in its heat will become a chart hit. There are plenty of examples of songs in the past building this momentum up through the weeks and overtaking those songs who outscored them in the heats.
Who sits on the jury?
If we go back in Melodifestivalen history the tradition was that juries would be stationed across the country, and that it would be these juries that would decide on the winner. It has only been since 1999 that the final decision was decided 50/50 between the juries and the televoters.
Melodifestivalen had regional juries until 2009, when the idea of also adding an international jury came in. But the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest saw Sweden not qualify, through sending a song Swedish juries loved but international juries were lukewarm to. That triggered the switch in 2011 to make the jury fully international, made by invited panels that Swedish Television organise from all parts of the Eurovision voting world, in their attempt to find the song that will get the best result for the country.
Should I get the app? I live abroad.
Undeniably the main feature of the Melodifestivalen app is the ability to vote for free during the show, but that is a feature that only those on a Swedish phone network can get.
However there are some good perks that the app has regardless. You will be able to predict the qualifiers each week and also build groups so you can see how your friends have voted.
The most addictive features on the app are its quiz, which you can use to compete against your friends (and test your Swedish before Eurovision) and the AllStars card collection feature. There are hundreds of digital cards to collect of Melodifestivalen artists from this year and previous years. You may need to trade with some of your friends to complete your collection.
What does “Nu Kör Vi” mean?
“Nu kör vi” is one of the set phrases that accompanies the show each week. It is used by the hosts of the show to trigger the audience applause as we go into the first song. Literally means “now we drive” but is used instead as an enthusiastic way of “here we go” or “let’s do this”.
Other stock phrases that have become part of the Melodifestivalen tradition include “vi har ett resultat”(we have a result, meaning that the voting announcement is about to begin) and “Hela Sveriges Fest” (a party for all Sweden, which has become a modern purpose from the public broadcaster as to who Melodifestivalen should appeal to).
Are the rules the same as in the Eurovision Song Contest?
Many of the rules are the same. For example the songs have to be no longer than three minutes, need to be new releases and acts need to be 16 years of age by the time of the semi final Sweden takes part in. Malou Prytz made her debut at age 15 for example, but would have been 16 by May had Sweden selected her.
One rule that Melodifestivalen has used for more than ten years is the option to have a backing track with pre-recorded backing vocals. That has led to Sweden to often send songs with a huge backing track choir of voices that has been hard to replicate on the Eurovision stage. However one of the first changes that new EBU Executive Supervisor Martin Österdahl made was to add this rule to the Eurovision Song Contest as well.
However there are two differences that do pop up in the odd performance here and there. Firstly the rules in Melodifestivalen allow for a maximum of eight people on stage, rather than six in Eurovision. Secondly the Swedish rules on language are a touch more liberal than Eurovision allows, with a handful in modern times using a certain 4 letter word beginning with f. One of those in 2017 even went on to win, before making an ESC edit with the word “freakin” instead.
Keeping Up With Melodifestivalen
How can I find out more about the competition’s history?
Sadly SVT does not have separate websites for all of their different shows like Melodifestivalen, which was one of the reasons an app was created to follow the show on.
For a history of the competition one can look at the newly launched Mellopedia – which documents history from Melodifestivalen all in one place – one feature on there we will highlight is the dictionary of Melodifestivalen terms that Gustav Dahlander, Melodifestivalen expert at SVT has put together. It is only in Swedish for now however, but translation apps do a good job on the site from my experience.
How can I keep up with the competition today?
Melodifestivalen has official accounts on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook and Snapchat.
In addition to that the show has its own dedicated section on SVT Play, the broadcaster’s online streaming service, featuring a variety of content including baking tips for Melfest parties, slow TV of the stage being built and even a 3 hour clip show, mainly of voting sequences, to help you sleep at night.
The broadcaster is also making a bigger effort this year with the förfest (preparty) and efterfest (post-party) programmes immediately before and after the live show, which can be viewed on SVT.
If you want to talk about the contest with others there is also the public broadcaster’s own Discord server all about Melodifestivalen, in both English and Swedish for conversations and updates about the show.
Who else is good to follow for Melodifestivalen coverage?
#melfest is the official hashtag if you want to follow the voices of others during the show and its build up.
In terms of mainstream media content the main Swedish newspapers will be publishing their thoughts on the songs and the scandals (there’s always something) each week. I’ll do a shout out here to the team at Aftonbladet for their work following Melodifestivalen, with their own podcast on the behind-the-scenes gossip and an insider blog by journalist Tobbe Ek which is a great read especially the morning after the after show parties.
In terms of dedicated English language content the main Eurovision sites will all be covering the show. I can throw The EuroTrip Podcast out once more here for their weekly Melfest Monday show this time of year.
And how should you enjoy the show?
Melodifestivalen, a party for all Sweden, is best enjoyed as the best Saturday night at home entertainment there is for the entire family. Dress up in your finest glittery clothes to be as glamorous as possible. Ensure the lördagsgodis, the Saturday sweets, are stocked up to keep the children buzzing so they don’t notice the show ends past their bedtime. And don’t forget that everybody needs to have a scorecard of their own.
And, as we all know what to say when the show begins – Nu Kör Vi!