It’s that time of year again: We’re launching our search for the most ROBBED song of the 2026 Eurovision national final season!
SongHunt 2026 is just around the corner, and there are only a few tiny changes compared to last year.
Four exciting events in the chat
Once again, there will be three semi-finals, from which four songs each will get a ticket to the final. Three songs will qualify based on the classic 50/50 system of “chat” and “poll” votings, with a fourth qualifier being determined in a “truel” in the chat. The successful entries (twelve in total) will be all reunited in the final – without any Last Chance round like in earlier years.
Updated system for the semi-final lineup
Once again, we are tweaking our system for the line-up, but just a bit. Our goal is to cater for even more variety and higher quality. For those of you who are into all the details, we’ve added a little explanation further below.
We’ve also updated “Second Chance”, our wildcard concept (for songs that didn’t make it all the way to their national final): Rounds will be launched on an irregular basis, with polls that we’re promoting in the chat and on our Facebook community group. If you’re a chat regular, make sure you join us there – especially since we’re also planning to host Second Chance viewings in the chat at non-regular intervals!
Every semi-final has its own cut-off date as previously. In most cases, that is the Saturday before the poll launch for each semi-final. The line-up for the next semi-final is decided by the end of that cut-off date.
Five automatic qualifiers
Five songs make it into a semi-final based on previous success factors:
- The current top three from the main qualification list (based on the national final chat score)
- The next two songs from the main qualification list from two different countries that aren’t already represented in the aforementioned top three
Seven selected entries
The other songs will be carefully selected:
- Three songs will be chosen by each member of the SongHunt team, and may come from either list (the main qualification list and/or the Second Chance list). We will take the preferences of our chatters into account, but this also helps us to enable more variety, as well as giving polarizing entries a better chance of being included in SongHunt
- One song is the new Team Choice, which can be either of these:
- The current top scorer from the Second Chance list (based on the Second Chance voting rounds held at non-regular intervals)
- A sixth score-based qualifier from the main qualification list – from yet another country that isn’t already represented within the first five rule-based qualifiers
- A song for which we otherwise have every reason to include in SongHunt
Results as part of the semi-final events
It worked so well last year that we’re doing it again: Each semi-final will be launched with a poll, and closed – one week later – with the corresponding event in the chat, featuring the results presentation as the highlight of the show.
What about Sanremo?
Sanremo songs are eligible for SongHunt! In principle, anyway. We established this rule last year, and we’re keeping it for this year, so the Sanremo songs will be included in the SongHunt master results list just like any other national finalists. However, there is another rule that’s been a firm part of SongHunt for many years: Participating songs have to be available on YouTube with their original TV live performance, in full length. Based on past experience, we expect the Sanremo songs to once again not meet this criterion, and thus are unlikely to compete in SongHunt. But you never know!
Don’t be too worried if this feels like too much information: The SongHunt fundamentals – voting in the public poll on each semi-final, and voting in the chat as part of the live result – remain as familiar as ever. And your participation and support will be appreciated as it has been for the last eleven years of SongHunt.
Here’s an overview of the dates for your diary. We look forward to seeing lots of you in the #esc chat for the live shows!
Chat event dates:
22 February – Semi-final 1
(2 March – No SongHunt)
8 March – Semi-final 2
15 March – Semi-final 3
28 March (NEW DATE) – Final
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