The Busker won the Malta Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday securing a ticket for the big festival in Liverpool in May.

The Busker performed the song Dance (Our own party) obtaining 121 points, beating Ryan Hili's In the Silence, which got 85 points. Matt Blxck's Up placed third in the contest, with 76 points.

Voting was split between a professional jury panel and nationwide televoting. It was Matt Blxck who got the biggest number of votes from the five jury members. 

But it was the three-piece band The Busker (made up of singer Dav Jr, saxophonist Sean Meachen and drummer Jean Paul Borg) which ultimately walked away with the trophy after securing a whopping 80 votes from televoting.

Saturday’s finale saw 16 contestants perform in the hope of winning a ticket to Liverpool, where this year’s Eurovision Song Contest will be held. There were some familiar faces in the context, such as X-Factor Malta winner Ryan Hili and 2001 winner Fabrizio Faniello.

Conspicuous by his absence was fan favourite Aidan Cassar, who was disqualified for breaching the competition’s social media rules. Cassar was allowed a cameo appearance on the night.

The Busker aced a long path to victory. For the first time, the Malta Eurovision Song Contest was held across five separate nights, with contestants being gradually whittled down from an original longlist of 40 songs and singers to Saturday night’s winner.

Ryan Hili placed second.Ryan Hili placed second.

Apart from the honour of representing Malta in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, The Busker also walks away with a €10,000 prize, which they can choose to share with their song’s author and composer.

There are also monetary prizes for runners-up, ranging from €4,000 for second-place to €300 for each contestant who made it to the final 40.

While Dance (Our own party) took top billing on Saturday night, there is no guarantee that it will be the song that The Busker will perform in Liverpool.

Matt BlXckMatt BlXck

Both the 2021 and 2022 winners, Destiny and Emma Muscat, performed songs selected for them by PBS after they were crowned champions. The song performed by 2019 winner Michaela Pace was also selected for her by PBS.

Malta has until March to submit its entry to the Eurovision Song Contest. The contest itself will be held in May.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.