Bulgaria to participate in Eurovision song contest in Rotterdam in 2020
Bulgaria will participate in the Eurovision song contest in 2020, being held in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, director-general of public broadcaster Bulgarian National Television (BNT) Emil Koshlukov said in an interview with local media published on October 30.
Koshlukov said that Bulgaria’s participation in the song contest would not cost BNT “a single stotinka” because an external general sponsor would pay the costs of BNT’s participation fee, the creation of a song and video, stage costumes, presentation of the song abroad and trips by the BNT team to the Netherlands.
He said that the identity of the general sponsor would be announced at a forthcoming news conference.
Eurovision 2020 will see semi-finals on May 12 and 14 and the final on May 16, in what is the world’s most-watched live television show barring global sports broadcasts such as the Olympics.
Bulgaria first took part in Eurovision in 2005 and has competed in the song contest 12 times since then. It skipped the song contest in 2013 and 2014 and again missed Eurovision in Israel’s city of Tel Aviv in 2019, citing financial constraints.
Bulgaria’s best performance was in Kyiv in 2017, when Kristian Kostov won second place with the song Beautiful Mess. At its most recent participation, in 2018, Bulgaria’s contestant, the Equinox ensemble, took 14th place with the song Bones.
For the 2020 contest, 41 countries so far, including Bulgaria, have confirmed their participation.
