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Finland: UMK 2024 Stage Revealed!

This morning the Finnish broadcaster Yle has revealed the stage for Finland’s Eurovision selection show.

The stage for the 2024 edition of Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu (UMK) will have a total of 719 spotlights, LED panels, and a catwalk.

 

Δείτε αυτή τη δημοσίευση στο Instagram.

 

Η δημοσίευση κοινοποιήθηκε από το χρήστη UMK (@uudenmusiikinkilpailu)

The chairman of the UMK jury, Tapio Hakanen announced that 363 songs were submitted for UMK 2024.

The seven acts that will compete in UMK 2024 will be revealed this evening at 19:00 CET. The live TV announcement can be followed through Youtube, YLE Areena, with English commentary as well.

The 2024 edition of UMK will be held on February 10 in the Nokia Arena in Tampere. With a capacity of 13,455, the Nokia Arena is the largest venue to ever host UMK.

 

Stay tuned to Eurovisionfun for all the latest news regarding Finland’s participation in Eurovision 2024!

Finland: The details of the sixth artist of UMK 2024!

Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu‘s official Instagram account has released the next details about the sixth artist to participate in the Finnish national final, UMK 2024!

  • Iconic, But it’s not Danny
  • Trailblazer
  • Slay!

The first estimates talk about Erika Vikman where it seems that she meets the conditions. Erika Vikman is a 31 year old Finnish singer and songwriter from Tampere. She started her professional career in 2013, participating in the seventh edition of Finnish Idols and reaching seventh place. After leaving Idols, Erika Vikman established herself as a Finnish tango singer. In 2015 she participated in Tangomarkkinat, where she finished second and a year later she returned and was crowned winner in 2016. After the competition, Vikman signed a record deal with Sony Music and released her first single “Ettei mee elämä hukkaan”.

In 2020, Erika Vikman signed with Warner Music Finland and was confirmed by Finland’s broadcaster Yle to compete at UMK 2020, with the song “Cicciolina” and came in second place. Despite peaking at number two, the song went on to become a big hit in Finland, reaching the top five singles of the year.

After the success of “Cicciolina”, the next single “Synsten pöytä” was later released, which became for the second year the top single of the year and later the first number one radio hit. Also in 2020, he placed third in the first season of Masked Singer Suomi, competing as “The Wasp”.

 

Stay tuned on Eurovisionfun for all the updates!

Source: uudenmusiikinkilpailu

Finland: Tampere will host UMK 2024!

Tampere will be the host city for Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu 2024.  Finnish national final for Eurovision will go bigger.  Next year the city of Tampere will host the show on Saturday 10 February, 2024 at Nokia Arena where we will get to know who will be Käärijä’s successor.   So far Yle has received a total of 419 song submissions for the final but only seven entries will make the cut.

The Contest for New Music UMK has become a real music institution, which absolutely deserves a much bigger venue. Turku has been such an amazing UMK city for so many years – we’re very grateful for that. This year, the UMK train is heading north, and I think that Tampere and Nokia Arena are the perfect venue for a major Eurovision event. Now’s the time for a really big show and a Eurovision atmosphere that will blow the roof off! Villé Villen, Yle creative director

UMK24

UMK 2024 Grand final will take place in Tampere with the tickets going on sale on Thursday 5 October, 2023 at 8 am CET.  The announcement of the seven finalists will start on Wednesday January 10, 2024 and their songs will be released one at a time starting the next day.

According to Yle’s team for UMK this year selection was much harder since “the standards are historically high” making it more difficult to decide which acts will participate:

“It’s amazing to see how Finnish artists and songwriters, from newcomers to national favourites, are all jumping into the UMK fray. This year, we’re seeing what has to be the all-time best group of entries, which will end up being a truly sensational final seven. Among the finalists we have a talented artist’s first 90s-style dance song, a power song by a true vocal talent, perhaps the best song of an indie favourite’s career, two big name performers doing a surprising duo with a serious refrain, a thunderous rock anthem by a world-touring band, a seriously intense song from one of the most listened-to artists in Finland, and a hard-hitting club banger by a well-known artists making a comeback. This year, viewers will be getting an extremely high-energy UMK in an even bigger arena!” Tapio Hakanen, Chair of UMK jury

UMK Schedule

6:00pm UMK kickoff party

Nokia Arena doors and services open

Eurovision Disco (1st and 3rd floor)

YleX Street (5th floor)

8:30pm Audience must be seated in the arena

8:30pm-9:00pm UMK24 Preshow

9:00pm-11:00pm UMK24 Show

11:00pm-3:00am UMK after party

Eurovision Disco (1st and 3rd floor)

YleX Street (5th floor)

 

Käärijä finished in second place at the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 winning the televote.  This makes him the most successful Finnish representative since Lordi’s victory.

Source: Yle

Stay tuned at EurovisionFun for more news about Finland at the Eurovision Song Contest 2024!


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Finland: YLE in talks to move UMK 2024 to a bigger stadium!

The Finnish national final for the selection of the country’s participation in Eurovision, UMK, was undoubtedly one of the most successful and talked about national finals this year, both within Finland (where 2.1 million viewers tuned in) and among fans of the contest.

UMK’s success in recent years has led Finnish broadcaster YLE to decide to move the show to a bigger stadium from 2024 onwards. As Ville Vilén, Head of Creative Content at Yle, explained:

“The popularity has grown to such proportions that moving it [the final] to a larger space has become topical.”

YLE is in talks to find a stadium, the capacity of which will allow it to sell four to six times more tickets than Logomo, its current venue, which has a capacity of just 1500 spectators. YLE is therefore looking for a suitable stadium in the Turku, Tampere and Helsinki areas.

Finland will be represented in the contest this year by Käärijä, the artist who brought the country to the 3rd place in the betting odds and who has been met with huge support from fans of the contest, with the song Cha Cha Cha. You can enjoy it below:

https://youtu.be/rJHe-iZ5HSI

Stay tuned to Eurovisionfun for all developments!

Source: Eurovoix