Lied van Liedjes 26

This was the twenty-sixth Lied van Liedjes to be held. Semi-Finals would occur on the 24th, 25th and 26tth September 2002. Golden Duels / Second Chance night would occur on 28th September 2002 with the final happening on 29th September 2002.

Organization
Cardiff was the picked city from point zero, everyone approved of the picking of Wales' capital as host city. Due to the big commotion, anixety and drama caused by the rules imposed on the previous edition, Hans Weiss was expelled from the executive spot, replaced by the norwegian Lucia Danielsen. Annie McLoad got an apology letter, but Eila Kekkonen remained as the director. They picked Margaret Davies as the coordinator, a conneiseur of LvL and Wales. It was the first time that three women were in charge.

Contest
With Hans Weiss being demoted and expelled, his "childish" and "drama catching" rules were revoked, yet unfortunally Danielsen announced that the participation few couldn't be lowered due to some cuts they had on the previous month. With this, bigger outside of Europe nations managed to return:, and. also returned, which was a bigger shock, because Israel didn't withdraw or made any protests; in fact, Israel would be moved to the first group with the nordic and central europe countries in order to avoid conflicts with the arab countries.

Joining this fours countries, and  returned, after Danielsen told them the rule was no longer in effect. Sadly, and  couldn't participate due to the fee.

managed to pay the fee and return. Many fans were excited for it. And the last country returning was, with the help of Belgium, France and Germany, managed to pay the fee and enter the contest in time.

No country debuted, no country withdrew. Countries that tried to return but failed: stated focusing on other projects unbalanced their schdule to send the artist. and failed to return due to miscommunications with the coordinators. once again sent another joint entry with Ireland. Failed to debut: tried to debut but found the same problems as Morocco and Lebanon. tried to debut to, since it was close to home, but they couldn't afford the fee.