Benidorm will host the event in which the next representative of Spain in Eurovision contest will be chosen

The city of Benidorm will host at the beginning of 2022 the musical event in which the next representative of Spain in Eurovision contest will be chosen. This has been announced today at an event organized by RTVE and the Generalitat Valenciana in Paseo de Tamarindos and with which the starting signal is given to this new selection formula for the voice or voices of Spain in Eurovision contest. An act that has opened with the performance of the artist Ruth Lorenzo and in which the mayor, Toni Pérez; the president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Ximo Puig; and the president of RTVE, José Manuel Pérez Tornero.

This Eurovision event will be distributed in three galas - two semifinals and one final - in which the previously selected artists will perform. According to the content director of RTVE, Amalia Martínez de Velasco, these three galas will surely be held "on consecutive days" and at the discretion of the jury of experts will be joined by the opinion of the public and, perhaps also, that of international experts.

After evoking the inscription ‘We live in hope’ which reads on the stone submerged in Elche Park fountain, the mayor highlighted that this Eurovision contest generates “illusion, so necessary at the moment”; and he recalled that "music has always been linked to our city", recalling that at the end of the 1950s Benidorm took on "the challenge" of organizing a great national musical event that led to "our Song Festival". A festival, he pointed out, was seen as "a cultural phenomenon and, also and why not, as a promotional element", and which made Benidorm a benchmark in this field and from which songs were launched "to international fame, authors and interpreters ”.

"62 years later, in this summer of 2021, so in need of hope, the illusion returns" and Benidorm continues to be "the best place to catapult voices, music and songs," said Toni Pérez, who thanked RTVE and the Generalitat the choice of Benidorm and which has encouraged "composers, lyricists, musicians and performers to win the future, jumping from Benidorm to Eurovision".

For his part, the president of the Generalitat has assured in “this land of musicians” that is the Valencian Community “Benidorm has always been an emblem”; a city that "evokes the reunion, open and hospitable" and that for that reason "incard so well in this story of music and hope" that the new Eurovision event represents. In addition, Ximo Puig has pointed out that Eurovision is a way of "reinforcing Europe", in this case "in the joint soul and emotion that can only be experienced through art, culture and music".

The president of RTVE has influenced the suitability of Benidorm as the venue for an event that arises from "cooperation"; and he has assured that "we come here to give the opportunity to young Spanish music, to win Eurovision and to be projected internationally."

Although all the details about the new selection process for the representative of Spain in Eurovision will be revealed over the next few weeks and months, the Director of Contents of RTVE has advanced that the event presented today is part of "a long-term strategy term ”and that seeks to“ promote musical talent ”and“ hit on a formula that must combine good songs with solvent artists, a well-designed visual show and, above all, bet on current musical sound ”.

During the presentation of the event, a video was shown with fragments of all the participations of Spain in Eurovision.