Sopot International Song Festival

Sopot International Song Festival
Also known as	Sopot Music Festival Grand Prix Sopot Top of the Top Festival
Genre	Song contest
Country of origin	Poland
No. of episodes	47 editions
Production
Location(s)	Gdańsk (1961–1963) Sopot (1964–2009, 2012–14)
Production company(s)	TVP (1994–2004) TVN (2005–2009) Polsat (2012–2014)
Release
Original network	TVP (1994–2004) TVN (2005–2009) Polsat (2012–2014)
Original release	25 August 1961 (1961-08-25) – 23 August 1980 (1980-08-23) 23 August 1984 (1984-08-23) – 1 June 2009 (2009-06-01) Revival: 24 August 2012 (2012-08-24) – 23 August 2014 (2014-08-23)
Chronology
Followed by	Intervision Song Contest
Related shows	Eurovision Song Contest (1956–)
External links
Official website

The Sopot International Song Festival (later called Sopot Music Festival Grand Prix, Sopot Top of the Top Festival from 2012–13 and Polsat Sopot Festival in 2014) is an annual international song contest held in Sopot, Poland. It was the biggest Polish music festival altogether with the National Festival of Polish Song in Opole, and one of the biggest song contests in Europe.

The contest was organised and transmitted live by the Polish state television broadcaster, Telewizja Polska (TVP) between 1994 and 2004. The following year, the concert was broadcast by the private media station TVN for the first time and remained on TVN until 2009. From 2012 to 2014, the concert was broadcast and organised by Polsat. It was later cancelled by the broadcaster.

The first Sopot festival was initiated and organised in 1961 by Władysław Szpilman, assisted by Szymon Zakrzewski from Polish Artists Management (PAGART). The first three editions were held in the Gdansk Shipyard hall (1961–1963), after which the festival moved to the Forest Opera. The main prize has been Amber Nightingale through most of its history.

Between 1977 and 1980 it was replaced by the Intervision Song Contest, which was still held in Sopot. Unlike the Eurovision Song Contest, the Sopot International Music Festival often changed its formulas to pick a winner and offered many different contests for its participants. For example, at the 4th Intervision Song Festival (held in Sopot August 20–23, 1980) two competitions were effective: one for artists representing television companies, the other for those representing record companies. In the first the jury considered the artistic merits of the songs entered; while in the second, it judged the performers' interpretation."

The festival has always been open to non-European acts, and countries like Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mongolia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Peru, South Africa and many others have been represented in this event.

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