Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2024

Croatia participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2024 in Malmö, Sweden, with "Rim Tim Tagi Dim" performed by Baby Lasagna. The Croatian broadcaster Croatian Radiotelevision (HRT) organised the national final Dora 2024 to select the Croatian entry for the contest.

Croatia was drawn to compete in the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 7 May 2024 and was later selected to perform in position 7. At the end of the show, "Rim Tim Tagi Dim" was announced among the top 10 entries of the first semi-final and hence qualified to compete in the final, marking a second consecutive qualification to the final for the country. It was later revealed that Croatia placed first out of the fifteen participating countries in the semi-final with 177 points. In the final, Croatia performed in position 23 and placed second out of the 25 performing countries, scoring a total of 547 points, winning the public televote. This marked Croatia's highest placing in the history of the contest.

Background
Prior to the 2024 contest, Croatia had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest twenty-eight times since its first entry in. The nation's best result in the contest to this point was fourth, which it achieved on two occasions: in with the song "Sveta ljubav" performed by Maja Blagdan and in  with the song "Marija Magdalena" performed by Doris Dragović. Following the introduction of semi-finals in, Croatia had this far featured in eight finals out of seventeen participations. In, Croatia qualified to the final (for the first time since 2017) with Let 3 and the song "Mama ŠČ!", finishing in 13th place.

The Croatian national broadcaster, Croatian Radiotelevision (HRT), broadcasts the event within Croatia and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. Since first participating in 1993, HRT has consistently organised the national final Dora in order to select the Croatian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest, except between 2012 and 2018, when the broadcaster either opted out of participation or internally selected its entries. On 14 September 2023, HRT confirmed Croatia's participation in the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest and its intention to continue to use Dora to select the nation's entry.

Dora 2024
Dora 2024 was the twenty-fifth edition of Dora, the national final format which selects Croatia's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. The competition took place at the HRT studios in Zagreb, the first time since 2011 that the contest was not held in Opatija, and was hosted by Duško Čurlić, Maja Ciglenečki and Anja Cerar. It aired on HRT 1, on the streaming service HRTi, as well as on the Croatian radio station HR 2.

Format
The head of the Croatian delegation to the contest, Tomislav Štengl, initially discussed the possibility of including two semi-finals in addition to the usual final, which was provisionally scheduled for 24 February 2024;  it was ultimately decided that the competition would consist of two semi-finals on 22 and 23 February, and a final on 25 February. Twelve entries performed in each semi-final, with eight qualifying for the final based on the results of a public televote. The winner of the final was determined by a 50/50 combination of votes from the public and a jury composed of four national panels – Osijek, Rijeka, Split and Zagreb – and four international panels –, , and ; each of these panels consisted of three music industry professionals. The viewers and the juries each had a total of 464 points to award. Each jury group distributed their points following the same pattern used in the Eurovision Song Contest, i.e. 1–8, 10 and 12 points. The viewer vote was based on the percentage of votes each song achieved through telephone and SMS voting; for example, if a song gained 10% of the viewer vote, then that entry would be awarded 10% of 464 points rounded to the nearest integer: 46 points. The stage and set designer for the stage of Dora 2024 was Igor Juras.

Competing entries
On 15 September 2023, HRT opened a submission period where artists – required to hold Croatian citizenship – and composers were able to submit their entries to the broadcaster until 30 November 2023. At the closing of the window, a record number of 203 entries had been received.

An expert committee reviewed the received submissions and selected twenty-four entries (plus four backups), which were announced on 15 December 2023. The participants included Damir Kedžo and Let 3, who won the competition in and, respectively. Additionally, Severina, who won the competition in 2006 and represented Croatia in Eurovision the same year, was a backup dancer for Let 3's performance. On 3 January, it was announced that Zsa Zsa had withdrawn for undisclosed reasons; she was replaced by Baby Lasagna. The songs premiered on 4 January 2024 on the program Svijet diskografije on HR 2, and were released on YouTube on 9 January 2024.

Entry withdrawn Replacement entry

Semi-finals
The two semi-finals took place on 22 February and 23 February 2024 respectively. Slimane, who will represent France in the Eurovision Song Contest 2024, performed as an interval act in the first semi-final, while Raiven, 2024 Slovenian entrant, performed as an interval act in the second semi-final. Natalie Balmix had audio problems in the second semi-final due to technical issues.

Final
The final was held on 25 February 2024 at 20:15 CET and featured the 16 qualifiers from the preceding two semi-finals. The winner, "Rim Tim Tagi Dim" performed by Baby Lasagna, was decided by a combination of votes from a professional jury and the Croatian public via televoting. The interval act of the final saw Let 3 and Jovanka Broz Titutka perform Let 3's entry "Mama ŠČ!", as well as their hit "Ero s onoga svijeta". Over 180,000 votes were cast in the televoting. There were some technical difficulties during the final; Natalie Balmix had issues with her audio, and Boris Štok's performance was delayed due to undisclosed technical issues.

Reception
In the lead-up to and following Dora, HRT was criticized by Eurovision fans and the general public for originally excluding the eventual winner Baby Lasagna from the line-up, placing him as a backup entry; when the entries were first released, he became the favourite to win. Writing for Index.hr, Marina Radoš called for the resignation of the HRT Eurovision team following the contest. HRT received further criticism for poor quality of the selected entries and the audio and technical difficulties. Following Baby Lasagna's performance in the first Eurovision semi-final, Index.hr further criticized HRT for placing him as a backup entry, calling out the jury, consisting of Željko Mesar, Igor Geržina, Dražen Miočić, Robert Urlić, Tomislav Krizmanić and Ema Gross, and disputing their competence.

Promotion
As part of the promotion of his participation in the contest, Baby Lasagna attended the PrePartyES in Madrid on 30 March 2024, the London Eurovision Party on 7 April 2024 and the Eurovision in Concert event in Amsterdam on 13 April 2024  –  the latter preceded by an appearance on the Dutch TV show Beau (TV show), broadcast on RTL 4. On 22 March 2024, he performed at the Večernjak's Rose award ceremony in Zagreb. On 13 April 2024, HRT organised a national mass dance to "Rim Tim Tagi Dim" across the cities of Zagreb, Split, Osijek, Zadar and Baby Lasagna's hometown of Umag; the footage was then shown on HRT shows Dobro jutro, Hrvatska, Dnevnik, Kod nas doma, and on the HRT social networks and website. On 21 April 2024, Baby Lasagna performed the song on the Slovenian TV show Nedeljsko popoldne, broadcast on TV SLO 1. He then met the Swedish ambassador to Croatia Anna Boda in Zagreb. The singer signed a cooperation agreement with the Municipality of Umag for financial and promotional purposes. On 1 May, Baby Lasagna took part in representative Teya Dora's birthday party, organised by the Serbian and Croatian delegations and open to press and fans.

At Eurovision
The Eurovision Song Contest 2024 took place at the Malmö Arena in Malmö, Sweden, and consisted of two semi-finals held on the respective dates of 7 and 9 May and the final on 11 May 2024. All nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "Big Five" (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) were required to qualify from one of two semi-finals in order to compete in the final; the top ten countries from each semi-final progressed to the final. On 30 January 2024, an allocation draw was held to determine which of the two semi-finals, as well as which half of the show, each country would perform in; the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) split up the competing countries into different pots based on voting patterns from previous contests, with countries with favourable voting histories put into the same pot. Croatia was scheduled for the first half of the first semi-final. The shows' producers then decided the running order for the semi-finals; Croatia was set to perform in position 7.

In Croatia, all three shows were broadcast on HRT 1 as well as on the broadcaster's streaming platform HRTi, with commentary by Duško Ćurlić, and on the HRT radio station HR 2, with commentary by Zlatko Turkalj. On HRT 1, the final was viewed by an average of 1.225 million, equating a viewing share of 74% of the Croatian TV audience for the four-hour broadcast of the final.

Performance
Baby Lasagna took part in technical rehearsals on 27 April and 1 May, followed by dress rehearsals on 6 and 7 May. For his performance of "Rim Tim Tagi Dim" at the contest, he is joined by supporting dancers. The costumes, taking inspiration from Croatian traditional clothing, were designed by Valentina Pliško.

Semi-final
Croatia performed in position 7, following the entry from and before the entry from. At the end of the show, the country was announced as a qualifier for the final. It was later revealed that Croatia placed first out of the fifteen participating countries in the first semi-final with 177 points.

Final
Following the semi-final, Croatia drew "producer's choice" for the final, meaning that the country will perform in the half decided by the contest's producers. The country was later chosen by producers to perform in position 23, following the entry from and before the entry from. Baby Lasagna once again took part in dress rehearsals on 10 and 11 May before the final, including the jury final where the professional juries cast their final votes before the live show on 11 May. He performed a repeat of his semi-final performance during the final on 11 May. Croatia placed second in the final, scoring 547 points; 337 points from the public televoting and 210 points from the juries. This marked Croatia's best result in the contest to date.

Voting
Below is a breakdown of points awarded to Croatia in the first semi-final and in the final. 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. The Croatian jury consisted of Gina Victoria Damjanović, Dino Jelusić, who won the 2003 Junior contest, Srđan Sekulović – Skansi, Mihovil Šoštarić, and Vanna, who represented. In the first semi-final, Croatia placed 1st with 177 points, marking the first time the country had won a Eurovision semi-final. The country received twelve points from, , , , and. This marked a second consecutive qualification to the final. In the final, Croatia placed 2nd with 547 points, receiving twelve points in the jury vote from and  and twelve points in the public televote from, , , , , , ,  and. This marked the highest position ever achieved by Croatia at the contest. Over the course of the contest, Croatia awarded its 12 points to in the first semi-final, and to  (jury) and  (televote) in the final.

The spokesperson for the Croatian jury at the final was Ivan Dorian Molnar, who previously announced the points for Croatia in and.

Detailed voting results
Each nation's jury consisted of five music industry professionals who are citizens of the country they represent. Each jury, and individual jury member, is required to meet a strict set of criteria regarding professional background, as well as diversity in gender and age. No member of a national jury was permitted to 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 as well as the nation's televoting results were released shortly after the grand final.

The following members comprised the Croatian jury:
 * Gina Victoria Damjanović
 * Dino Jelusić
 * Srđan Sekulović – Skansi
 * Mihovil Šoštarić
 * Ivana Vrdoljak (Vanna)

After Eurovision
Following Baby Lasagna's second place finish at the 2024 contest, the Zagreb Assembly announced it would organise a series of events to welcome the singer back to the country. On 12 May 2024, Ban Jelačić Square featured performances to celebrate the result, featuring appearances from Let 3, who represented Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023, Tajči and Emilija Kokić, as well as DJ Mario Kovač. Baby Lasagna also attended the event with a performance of "Rim Tim Tagi Dim". Attendees included Tomislav Tomašević (Mayor of Zagreb) and Andrej Plenković (Prime Minister of Croatia). The event was also broadcast live on HRT 1.