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Countdown to Eurovision 2026!

Eurovision season is here once again! The 2026 Grand Final will be on Saturday 16th May.

In 2026 it is the 70th Eurovision Song Contest, so a landmark year! It will be held in Vienna, Austria, after the 2025 contest was won by JJ with his song Wasted Love. The UK's entry is LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER with Eins, Zwei, Drei. 

I normally write two posts in the lead-up to Eurovision (occasionally a couple of "mini countdown" posts too). Here are my posts from last year: 

Countdown to Eurovision 2025!: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2025/05/countdown-to-eurovision-2025.html 

Eurovision Favourites 2025: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2025/05/eurovision-2025-favourites.html

 

And here is the first one of 2026! Today I'm taking a look at Eurovision spin-off contests. :) 

Update 10/5/26: I've updated this post to include the Junior version of ESC! :)  

 

American Song Contest 

An American spin-off of ESC called the American Song Contest (ASC) took place in 2022. It ran from March to May and was won by AleXa (now also known as Kim Seri). She represented her home state of Oklahoma with the song Wonderland.

However, there has only been one season (or series as we say in the UK) to date, with no current plans for another one. It seemed to be more of a reality show competition format, (like Pop Idol, American Idol, The Voice etc.) because it ran weekly, so it was different to Eurovision in that way. It was cool to see an American version though. :) 

I've previously written several posts about ASC and AleXa, which you can see below:

Eurovision Countdown- ASC 2022 Contestant AleXa: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2022/04/eurovision-countdown-asc-contestant.html

Eurovision Countdown- ASC 2022 Winner AleXa: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2023/04/eurovision-countdown-asc-2022-winner.html

 Countdown to Eurovision 2025! (features another update about AleXa): https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2025/05/countdown-to-eurovision-2025.html

 

Here is AleXa's winning performance at the Grand Final:

 


 

Eurovision Song Contest Asia 

And a new spin-off is set to launch later this year, based in Asia! The Eurovision Song Contest Asia (ESC) is set to take place on 14th November, in Bangkok, Thailand. It will be organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) -which also organises the original Eurovision- Voxovation, and Thailand based live entertainment and production company S20 Productions.

The idea of a version covering the Asia-Pacific region started as far as back as 2008 and an early planned show was Our Sound- The Asia Pacific Song Contest. It never got off the ground though.

ESCA was officially announced in March, with the launch of a website. So far, 10 countries have been confirmed to take part- Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam. 

As someone who likes both Eurovision and Asian music, I'm looking forward to this! I hope that they will broadcast it online, as it's unlikely to be shown on TV here in the UK.

I think ESCA stands a better chance of being successful than the American Song Contest. First of all because it seems to be more of a traditional ESC format and also because as mentioned in this BBC article, music is taken very seriously in Asia. 

Not that it isn't in the US as well, but in K-pop (and to also C-pop, J-pop and some other genres), there are survival shows designed to put together idol groups and live music shows are still popular (the latter has largely died out in the West). After finishing last summer, Simply K-pop made a comeback this year! 

K-pop (Korean pop) has gone worldwide and other Asian music genres  such as J-pop (Japanese pop), C-pop (Chinese pop) and South East Asian ones like T-pop (Thai pop) and V-pop (Vietnamese pop) are steadily gaining in popularity).

Here's a trailer for ESCA:

 


For more on Eurovision Song Contest Asia check out these links: 

ESCA page on the official Eurovision website: https://www.eurovision.com/asia/

Official ESCA site: https://eurovisionasia.com/

 

And for an introduction to Asian music, check out this post:

Asian Music- J-pop, K-pop and Beyond: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2017/02/asian-music-k-pop-j-pop-and-beyond.html

 

Plus, here is my most recent Asian music round-up post: 

Asian Music Round-up 2: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2022/03/more-asian-music.html

 

Junior Eurovision Song Contest

There's also the Junior Eurovision Song Contest (a version for kids), which was launched in 2003. Contestants are aged 9-14. It usually takes place around the end of the year (November or December). The UK as a whole has not taken part very often, only in the early years (2003-2005) and then again in 2022 and 2023. 

However, we haven't participted again since 2024. I'm not sure why, especially because the entries seem to have been more successful than in the main contest in recent years! Wales took part in in 2018 and 2019. 

Last year's contest was held in Tbilisi, Georgia, after Andria Putkradze won the 2024 one with the song To My Mom. The winner of the 2025 contest was France's Lou Deleuze with Ce Monde. The 24th edition of JESC will be held later this year. 

Update 21/5/26: It's now been announced that this year's edition will be held in Malta. 

Here is the 2025 winner Lou Deleuze's performance: 

 


 

For updates on Junior Eurovision, visit the official website: https://www.eurovision.com/junior-eurovision/ 

 

Hope you liked the post! :) I will write another one sharing my favourites from the current contest next week.

 

The Eurovision Semi-Finals will be on Tuesday 12th May and Thursday 14th May. The Grand Final is on Saturday 16th May. 

 

Keep up with Eurovision news on the official site: https://www.eurovision.com/eurovision-song-contest/vienna-2026/

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