A few weeks after the 2025 contest, Luxembourg’s broadcaster RTL has now confirmed that the Grand Duchy will come back for the 2026 edition in Austria.
The return of the Luxembourg Song Contest
RTL has confirmed the participation and the return of the national selection used since Luxembourg’s comeback in 2024: the Luxembourg Song Contest.
The selection will once again be held in the Rockhal, in Esch-sur-Alzette, next to the French border. It will be the third edition of the show. More details on the conditions for candidates and on the dates will be released in the upcoming weeks. In the last two years, the show was held in January, and acts had to have some sort of link to Luxembourg (Luxembourgish nationality, Luxembourg residency for at least three consecutive years, or a significant involvement in the Luxembourgish cultural scene).
In 2025, RTL worked with the Estonina-Ukrainian production company One2Remember, with some of the production staff having worked on the Eurovision 2023 Liverpool production. The show also included a long process, over several months, to train the candidates to perform on a big stage, on television, training them vocally to handle interviews and rehearsals, etc. It is likely the same kind of format will be used next year.
A 40th participation for the Grand Duchy
Luxembourg will take part in the third edition in a row since its comeback in 2024, and for the 40th time overall.
The Grand Duchy was one of the seven founders of Eurovision, taking part in the first ever edition in 1956. The legend says that they were the reason behind Lys Assia’s victory for Switzerland, as the two jury members for Luxembourg were not able to travel to Lugano for the show. As such, the EBU allowed two Swiss nationals to vote in their place, and Switzerland was the subsequent winner.
Luxembourg then participated in every contest until 1993, except for the 1959 edition, when the broadcaster (CTL at the time) rejected its entry late in the process and was unable to find a replacement in times for the contest in Cannes. Out of these thirty-nine participations, five ended up with a victory for Luxembourg, in 1961, 1965, 1972, 1973 and 1983. This makes it the second most successful country in relative numbers of victories (5 out of 39, about 13% of the participations, below Ukraine’s 3 out of 20 or 15%). It is also technically, along with Ukraine, one of two countries with a perfect qualification streak (albeit with only two semi-finals in its history).
Who do you think could represent Luxembourg in Eurovision next year? Did you watch the national selection in 2025 and/or 2024? Did you like it? Tell us more in the comments below or on social media at @escxtra!
