Now Eurovision 2026 is firmly behind us and we’ve had a chance to properly digest the wild ride of Vienna, it’s now time to discuss What Went Wrong. We’ve all had a chance to mull over the results of the contest. The Eurovision 2026 final saw some very dramatic results, but 6 acts in particular had noticeably bad results.
In our third part Rory, Kittens, and Tom discuss what went wrong with Belgium.
Who is ESSYLA?
ESSYLA is the stage name of Alice Van Eesbeeck, a singer born in Perwez in Wallonia, Belgium’s francophone region. Growing up in between Flanders and Wallonia, she showed a musical prowess from a young age, adopting her stage name as she was getting into the music scene. She first gained notoreity in 2020 when she competed in The Voice Belgique, finished second behind Jérémie Makiese, who would represent Belgium in 2022. Since then, she has released solo music, with her debut single being released one year later.
Her song for Eurovision 2026 – “Dancing on the Ice” – was written by Alice herself, alongside Barbara Petitjean, Emil Stengele and Nicolas d’Avell.
What are the issues with the selection?
Rory: With Belgium’s quirky alternations between VRT and RTBF, I was expecting RTBF to keep things internal as per usual, so RTBF randomly deciding to drop the song at 7am on a Thursday in February was nothing new. However, the lack of transparency in the selection I am a little miffed by. Who else was considered? What genres were played around with? What criteria were RTBF using to pick the act? These are all important questions that internal selections really don’t give us. And I fear that didn’t help when it came to the overall result.
Kittens: Look I am all for countries going internal and I will very much advocate for countries to go internal. Artists need to have a decent amount of experience to survive Eurovision. That experience needs to be tried and tested. We’ve seen it again and again that new-ish artists cannot hide their lack of experience well. And it does not matter where that experience has come from to an extent, but you cannot send artists who are new and just shove them on a stage and hope for the best. Thankfully, it seems like she’s taken it on the chin (at least outwardly) but it’s easy to see that she may not have been put in an ideal situation.
Tom: I think Belgium, and this is purely speculation from me personally, are struggling to find musicians willing to go to Eurovision with the current political climate. And I understand why. I don’t blame Essyla for competing by any means, but I also understand why artists aren’t willing to appear currently. Was she particularly bad – not at all. She has talent, can perform, and this was palatable. I think her other music is great. This just was not to my taste compared with other 2026 acts.
Was the song and act good enough to be in Eurovision?
Rory: I really liked “Dancing on the Ice” and it did rank quite highly on my yearly rankings. To this day, it is a song I have on heavy rotation on my playlist. The song does have a lot of potential and it was a competitive song that, if performed well, could have been a really good track. But Essyla was very clearly a misfit for this song, and that was very clear from the music video. It’s totally fine not to be the best dancer at Eurovision; it’s also totally fine to pick a song that’s better suited to make you more comfortable on stage and just stand there – just look at Blanche! The song was definitely geared to Eurovision; Essyla could have had more experience before taking on the Contest.
Kittens: There was so much promise in the video. People were getting behind the song. People Got It. And then it started to fade. The song, in another persons hands, with better staging and dare I say better production, could have made it. All the hope for this making it out of the semi were in the ‘this needs to serve [the former name of Miriana Conte’s 2025 entry]’ and it simply kinda…failed to do that. In the end there were so many competing girlybops, and it did not have the oomph needed to make it out. This is the kinda song that will just slip away into the annals of Eurovision history, be played on escradio 25 times a year, and every time you’ll go… What is this? Oh! Yeah, Belgium.
Tom: I think Essyla is. I’m not so sure about the song. I mean it qualified so what do I know – but I do not think this song is at all competitive. It feels like an album track or the least impressive song from a musical. Essyla deserved a better track in my opinion.
Did the staging compliment the song and stand out?
Rory: In a word, no. I liked some of the concepts they had on stage, like the fight between the cold and the warmth and the INCREDIBLY LOUD leaf blower that was catapulting the “snow” at Essyla. But for a mid-tempo song that involves dancing, this got lost. Her cursive expressions did little to impress either, and sometimes she did just mumble through entire lines of the song. My thinking is she was getting in her head trying to hit her marks, which then meant she was not present and not feeling fluid, which made it rigid and stood out – perhaps in a bad way.
Kittens: It’s just very generic staging, could have been any number of songs from the last 15 years, that didn’t stand out at all. Cute girl sings with dancers. Some nice effects. Given that the song wasn’t anything particularly special, this needed to go further. And I know you’re not meant to take the title of the song literally. But there was surely something right there ready to go that did not get picked up on! That could have been a memorable moment, and a reminder of who to vote for in the end!
Tom: I mean… there were some beautiful camera shots. And I didn’t hate it. But I absolutely hated the fact you could so clearly hear the “snow” machine activate. I understand that’s a risk with live production and staging, but it really took me out of the moment. I also didn’t love the outfit choices. Overall it was okay.
Should this song have qualified from this year’s semifinals?
Rory: This qualifying was the shock qualifier I was pleasantly surprised with. Like I said, I really like this song, and in the studio, this is a really strong track! I understand it barely scraped through, but even I was thinking a song like Montenegro would have made it through. Songwise, it’s definitely deserved, but I would totally thrown out that staging concept and gone for something different by the time we got to the final.
Kittens: I think it was very lucky for them that this was in SF1 because I simply don’t think it would have made it through SF2. I do think this was always borderline to me – but that does mean of course that it could have made it through and it did. I just don’t think there was enough that was remarkable about it to make it a 100% sure qualifier.
Tom: I personally would have placed Montenegro or Georgia above this, but I understand how and why it qualified. Personal opinion doesn’t matter, it did qualify. But I’m not sure it would have made it through from semifinal 2 at all easily. I think Belgium are lucky to have been in semifinal 1.
What are our outlooks for future contests?
Rory: Overall, what RTBF – and VRT – need to do is to find someone who knows their own craft and find a song they themselves are happy to sing and dance in front of millions of people. I understand Essyla wrote this song. I understand she wanted to challenge herself and work on her choreo and vocals. But Eurovision isn’t really the place to do that. Both broadcasters want a good result, and I think finding someone with a cohesive package that fits their comfort – and they feel happy doing the moves they rehearsed on stage is a recipe that you can’t really go wrong with.
Kittens: I really do think Belgium need to look carefully into what they want to do at the contest. They’ve struggled quite badly in recent years (not you Gustaph my king) and it just needs so much more of a push – if indeed, they decide to stay in.
Tom: I’m not sure on this one. I’ve liked so many recent acts from Belgium that haven’t qualified more than I enjoyed Essyla’s song, so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’d like to see Mentissa go to ESC for Belgium one day. I always like the Belgium NF on the years that they do it. But I also respect that a lot of the population of the country wishes that the broadcaster would withdraw from the Contest in the current climate. So who knows what is to come in 2027.
Watch the accompanying discussion video here:
Belgium’s Eurovision Journey
Belgium was one of the debutant countries at the beginning of the Eurovision Song Contest back in 1956. For the first edition, countries could submit two songs, and for Belgium that year, ‘Messieurs les noyès de la Seine’ by Fud Leclerc and ‘Le plus beau jour de ma vie’ by Mony Marc represented the nation. To this day we do not know the final results of Eurovision 1956. Belgium have taken part in 64 Eurovision Song Contests; however, they have only ever won once: in 1986 with Sandra Kim and the song ‘J’amie la vie’, scoring 176 points.
Belgium chose ESSYLA to represent the nation with “Dancing on the Ice” in 2026. Competing in the first semi-final, Belgium qualified for the final, placing 21st and earning a total of 36 points, all of which came from the professional jury.
What do think about our thoughts? Do you think Belgium could have done better? Let us know in the comments or on social media! Be sure to follow ‘That Eurovision Site’ on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Threads and Bluesky as we prepare for Eurovision 2027!
Source: That Eurovision Site
Image Credit: Alma Bengtsson / EBU
Rory Gannon