Lied van Liedjes 9

This was the ninth Lied van Liedjes to be held. It was held on April 13th and 15th.

Organization
Sofia was disqualified from hosting due to political issues with the city's government. The LVL team eventually settled on Varna.

In this edition, a country outside of Europe was invited to participate. Australia, due to maintaining strong bonds with the UK and having a stable economy, could afford to join the contest in the ninth edition, alongside European nations Iceland and Lithuania.

Contest
Due to the contest starting to get quite sizeable and the Varna arena having limited seating capacity, the contest was split into two shows. The first one was the Prequalification Round, which was the first concept of a semi implemented in the contest. 20 countries participated in the round, with four being automatically in the final: France, Italy, Netherlands, and the host country - Bulgaria.

Prequalification Round
The PreQ Round was held on April 13th. Out of the 20 countries participating, 12 made it to the final.