Skopje Fest (Macedonian: Скопје фест), officially Festival na zabavni melodii Skopje (Фестивал на забавни мелодии Скопје, 'Festival of entertaining melodies of Skopje'), is one of the main musical events in North Macedonia, and formerly in Yugoslavia. The show, organized by national broadcaster Macedonian Radio Television (MRT), involves some of North Macedonia's most popular performers, singing original tracks usually accompanied by the orchestra of MRT (excluding some of its latest editions).
History
The festival began in 1968 at the Universal Hall in Skopje, and continued until 1980. Eminent Macedonian and Yugoslav singers such as Slave Dimitrov, Zafir Hadzimanov and Nina Spirova performed at Skopje Fest in that period. Skopje Fest was revived in 1994, after Macedonia gained its independence from Yugoslavia, and has since taken over MakFest as North Macedonia's chief music festival.
Since the late 1990s, Skopje Fest has also been used as the Macedonian national selections for the Eurovision Song Contest. The first Macedonian representative in Eurovision, Vlado Janevski, won Skopje Fest 1998 with the song "Ne zori, zoro" and went on to perform at the Eurovision Song Contest 1998. Ever since, Skopje Fest has been shadowed by many controversial debates regarding the strategies behind the song selections and the lack of transparence concerning the winner. Such allegations are not new to the contest, however, they intensified as the Eurovision participation became a factor. After the decision to make Skopje Fest the national Macedonian selection round, the traditional point award ceremony was eliminated and replaced by the controversial announcement of only the top three places. Neither the points of the jury nor the televoting results are made public.
Up until 2002, Skopje Fest used to be the biggest musical activity in the country. However, it has faced financial problems since then. In 2003, the festival was not held in order to save money to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest. It returned in 2004 only to celebrate the 60th anniversary of MRT. After that, financial problems increased and the festival was not organised until 2008, when it was again used as the national final for Eurovision. In 2011, it was announced that Skopje Fest would continue being held as an independent event without being involved in the Macedonian selection process for the Eurovision Song Contest 2012.[1] It was used again as the Macedonian national final for the Eurovision Song Contest 2015, being dropped since then in favor of internal selections.[2]
Winners
Year
Song
Artist
1968
"Sramežlivi lugje" (Срамежливи луѓе)
Violeta Tomovska, Ljupka Dimitrova, Zafir Hadžimanov and Dime Tomovski[3]
