The 57th edition of the Portuguese Eurovision national selection show ‘Festival da Canção’ kicked off this morning with the first of two semi-finals. Ten acts performed in the semi-final with seven advancing through to the Grand Final.
Five qualifying acts were chosen through a 50/50 combination of jury and public televoting. In addition, the producers have added a sixth 'wild card' qualifier chosen solely by the televote.
Finally, due to a technical fault with the televoting, the producers decided to automatically qualify an additional seventh song to the final.
Semi-final 1 results:
Six acts were initially announced as qualifiers. Five of these acts were chosen by the televote and the jury, while a sixth act was automatically qualified due to a technical fault with voting.
Churky - "Encruzilhada"
Cláudia Pascoal - "Nasci Maria"
Sal - "Viver"
Mimicat - "Ai Coração"
You Can't Win, Charlie Brown - "Contraste Mudo"
Esse Povo - "Sapatos de Cimento"
The televote wild card was then announced as Neon Soho with "Endless World".
This means that for the remaining four acts, their Eurovision journey is over for this year:
MoYah - "Too Much Sauce"
Bolha - "Sonhos de Liberdade"
April Ivy - "Modo Voo"
You can watch the qualifying performances below:
The seven qualifying entries will compete in the Grand Final of 'Festival da Canção' on 11 March 2023. Before that, however, we have a second semi-final on 4 March 2023, where another 10 acts will try to take the first step towards representing Portugal at Eurovision in Liverpool.
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