Belgium in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023

Belgium participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 in Liverpool, United Kingdom, with the song "Because of You" performed by Gustaph. The Belgian entry for the 2023 contest was selected through the national final Eurosong 2023, organised by the Flemish broadcaster Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroeporganisatie (VRT). The competition featured seven competing acts and consisted of five songclub shows and a final. In the final on 14 January 2023, "Because of You" performed by Gustaph was selected as the winner via the votes of a fifteen-member jury panel and a public vote.

Belgium was drawn to compete in the second semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 11 May 2023. Performing during the show in position 5, "Because of You" was announced among the top 10 entries of the second semi-final and therefore qualified to compete in the final on 13 May. It was later revealed that Belgium placed eighth out of the 16 participating countries in the semi-final with 90 points. In the final, Belgium performed in position 16 and placed seventh out of the 26 participating countries, scoring 182 points.

Background
Prior to the 2023 contest, Belgium had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest sixty-three times since its debut as one of seven countries to take part in. Since then, the country has won the contest on one occasion in with the song "J'aime la vie" performed by Sandra Kim. Following the introduction of semi-finals for, Belgium had been featured in eight finals. In 2022, Jérémie Makiese represented the nation with the song "Miss You", qualifying for the final and placing 19th.

The Belgian broadcaster for the 2023 contest, who broadcasts the event in Belgium and organises the selection process for its entry, is Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroeporganisatie (VRT). The Belgian participation in the contest alternates between two broadcasters: the Flemish VRT and the Walloon Radio Télévision Belge de la Communauté Française (RTBF). Both broadcasters have selected the Belgian entry using national finals and internal selections in the past. On 4 July 2022, VRT confirmed Belgium's participation in the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest and announced on 20 August 2022 that the Eurosong national final would be held to select their entry. This marked the return of Eurosong for the first time since.

Eurosong 2023
Eurosong 2023 was the national final that selected Belgium's entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023. The competition consisted of five pre-recorded songclub shows that was broadcast between 9 and 13 January 2023, followed by a live final on 14 January 2023 where the winning song and artist was selected. All six shows was hosted by Peter Van de Veire and broadcast on Eén, as well as on the broadcaster's online streaming platform VRT MAX.

Format
Seven artists were sought to compete in Eurosong. The competition included five songclub shows that were broadcast between 9 and 13 January 2023. The shows featured each artist presenting their two candidate Eurovision songs in front of the six other artists that gave advice on which song should be selected for the final. Based on the advice, the artist selected one of the two songs to proceed to the final. The final took place on 14 January 2023 where the winner was chosen by an expert jury and public televoting.

The jury panel consisted of:


 * Alexander Rybak – Norwegian singer, winner of the
 * Nikkie de Jager – Dutch makeup artist and YouTuber, co-host of the
 * Laura Tesoro – singer and actress, represented Belgium in 2016
 * Jérémie Makiese – singer, represented Belgium in 2022
 * Laura Govaerts – presenter at MNM
 * Ann Reymen – presenter at Radio 2
 * Korneel de Clercq – presenter at Radio 1
 * Thibault Christiaensen – presenter at Studio Brussel
 * Francicso Schuster – actor, singer and dancer
 * Leslie Cable – Eurovision Head of Delegation for Wallonian broadcaster RTBF
 * Jasper van Biesen – author of 65 Years of Belgium at the Eurovision Song Contest
 * Stephan Monsieur – chairman of OGAE Belgium
 * André Vermeulen – journalist and Eurovision specialist
 * Els Germonpré – music coordinator for Eén
 * Manu Lammens – music manager of MNM

Competing entries
The names of the seven acts selected for the competition were announced on 8 November 2022 during the radio MNM programme Kawtar & Keyaert. Among the competing artists was former Eurovision Song Contest participant Tom Dice (member of the Starlings), who represented Belgium in 2010. The artists were selected by an A&R Team (Arts and Repertoire) consisting of music experts from VRT in consultation with record labels and artist managers. The candidate Eurovision songs to be performed by the artists were announced on 15 December 2022, along with 20-second snippets of each entry.

Songclub shows
The five songclub shows were recorded in Tournai and aired between 9 and 13 January 2023. During the shows each of the competing artists performed their two candidate songs for the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest and selected one of them to qualify to the final, taking into account the advice given by the other artists. All acts with the exception of the Starlings ultimately followed the advice of the songclub.

Final
The final took place on 14 January 2023 at the Palais 12 in Brussels. Each artist performed their selected candidate Eurovision song and the winner, "Because of You" performed by Gustaph, was selected by the combination of results from an expert jury and a public televote. The public and the jury each had a total of 780 points to award. Each member of the jury awarded points from 4-8, 10 and 12, while the televote awarded points based on the percentage of votes each song achieved. For example, if a song gained 10% of the viewer vote, then that entry would be awarded 10% of 780 points rounded to the nearest integer: 78 points. Four members of the jury also provided commentary and feedback to the songs during the show: Alexander Rybak, Nikkie de Jager, Laura Tesoro and Jérémie Makiese.

In addition to the competing entries, the show was opened with a medley of past Eurovision songs performed by the competing artists: Ameerah performed "Euphoria", Gala Dragot performed "Rhythm Inside", Gustaph performed "Waterloo", Loredana performed "Rise Like a Phoenix", Hunter Falls performed "Heroes", Chérine performed "Voilà", the Starlings performed "Snap" and all artists together performed "Baby Baby". The interval acts included past Eurovision winners Duncan Laurence and Rybak performing their winning songs "Arcade" and "Fairytale", respectively.

Promotion
Gustaph made several appearances across Europe to specifically promote "Because of You" as the Belgian Eurovision entry. On 8 April, Gustaph performed during the PrePartyES event, which was held at the Sala La Riviera venue in Madrid, Spain and hosted by Victor Escudero, SuRie and Ruslana. On 15 April, Gustaph performed during the Eurovision in  Concert event which was held at the AFAS Live venue in Amsterdam, Netherlands and hosted by Cornald Maas and Hila Noorzai.

At Eurovision
According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "Big Five" (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) are required to qualify from one of two semi-finals in order to compete for the final; the top ten countries from each semi-final progress to the final. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) split up the competing countries into six different pots based on voting patterns from previous contests, with countries with favourable voting histories put into the same pot. On 31 January 2023, an allocation draw was held, which placed each country into one of the two semi-finals, and determined which half of the show they would perform in. Belgium has been placed into the second semi-final, to be held on 11 May 2023, and has been scheduled to perform in the first half of the show.

Once all the competing songs for the 2023 contest had been released, the running order for the semi-finals was decided by the shows' producers rather than through another draw, so that similar songs were not placed next to each other. Belgium was set to perform in position 5, following the entry from and before the entry from.

The two semi-finals and the final was broadcast in Belgium by both the Flemish and Walloon broadcasters. VRT broadcast the shows on VRT 1 and Radio 2 with commentary in Dutch by Peter Van de Veire. The first semi-final reached over 549,000 viewers, while the second semi-final reached over 1.044 million viewers and the final reached over 1.334 million viewers with a marker share of 69.7%. RTBF televised the shows with commentary in French by Jean-Louis Lahaye and Maureen Louys; the first semi-final was broadcast on Tipil which reached 90,000 viewers, while the second semi-final and the final were broadcast on La Une with the former reaching 252,000 viewers and the latter reaching 344,000 viewers with a marker share of 31.4%. Vivacité also provided radio broadcasts for all three shows. The Belgian spokesperson, who announced the top 12-point score awarded by the Belgian jury during the final, was Bart Cannaerts.

Semi-final
Gustaph took part in technical rehearsals on 1 and 4 May, followed by dress rehearsals on 10 and 11 May. This included the jury show on 10 May where the professional back-up juries of each country watched and voted in a result used if any issues with public televoting occurred.

The Belgian performance featured Gustaph in a pink and white outfit and performing on stage together with three backing vocalists and a dancer. The performance began with Gustaph on top of a stairway, after which he walked down the steps to join the backing vocalists which then walked from him to go on the stairs. At the second chorus, Gustaph and the backing vocalists appeared on the satellite stage and were joined by the dancer towards the end who vogued around the other performers. The stage colours were black, white and pink and the LED screens displayed dancing shadows. The Belgian performance was directed by Hans Pannecoucke. The three backing vocalists that joined Gustaph during the performance were: Chantal Kashala, Monique Harcum and Sandrine Van Handenhoven, while the dancer was PussCee West.

At the end of the show, Belgium was announced as having finished in the top 10 and subsequently qualifying for the grand final. It was later revealed that Belgium placed eighth in the semi-final, receiving a total of 90 points.

Final
Shortly after the first semi-final, a winners' press conference was held for the ten qualifying countries. As part of this press conference, the qualifying artists took part in a draw to determine which half of the grand final they would subsequently participate in. This draw was done in the order the countries appeared in the semi-final running order. Belgium was drawn to compete in the second half. Following this draw, the shows' producers decided upon the running order of the final, as they had done for the semi-finals. Belgium was subsequently placed to perform in position 16, before the entry from and before the entry from.

Belgium once again took part in dress rehearsals on 12 and 13 May before the final, including the jury final where the professional juries cast their final votes before the live show. Gustaph performed a repeat of his semi-final performance during the final on 14 May. Belgium placed seventh in the final, scoring 182 points: 55 points from the televoting and 127 points from the juries.

Voting
Voting during the three shows involved each country awarding sets of points from 1-8, 10 and 12: one from their professional jury and the other from televoting in the final vote, while the semi-final vote was based entirely on the vote of the public. Each nation's jury consisted of five music industry professionals who are citizens of the country they represent. This jury judged each entry based on: vocal capacity; the stage performance; the song's composition and originality; and the overall impression by the act. In addition, each member of a national jury may only take part in the panel once every three years, and no jury was permitted to discuss of their vote with other members or be related in any way to any of the competing acts in such a way that they cannot vote impartially and independently. The individual rankings of each jury member in an anonymised form as well as the nation's televoting results were released shortly after the grand final.

Below is a breakdown of points awarded to Belgium and awarded by Belgium in the second semi-final and grand final of the contest, and the breakdown of the jury voting and televoting conducted during the two shows:

Detailed voting results
The following members comprised the Belgian jury:


 * Alex Callier
 * Lester William Senior
 * Sam Jaspers
 * Laura Govaerts
 * Sennek