Slovenia participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 with the song "Hvala, ne!" written by Lea Sirk and Tomy DeClerque. The song was performed by Lea Sirk. Slovenian broadcaster Radiotelevizija Slovenija (RTV Slovenija) organised the national selection EMA 2018 in order to select the Slovenian entry for the 2018 contest in Lisbon, Portugal. 16 entries competed in the national final which consisted of two shows: a semi-final and a final. Entries were selected to advance from the semi-final based on a public televote and a jury panel. Eight entries qualified to compete in the final where "Hvala, ne!" performed by Lea Sirk was selected as the winner following the combination of votes from six thematical juries and a public televote.
Slovenia was drawn to compete in the second semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 10 May 2018. Performing during the show in position 17, "Hvala, ne!" was announced among the top 10 entries of the second semi-final and therefore qualified to compete in the final on 12 May. It was later revealed that Slovenia placed eighth out of the 18 participating countries in the semi-final with 132 points. In the final, Slovenia performed in position 3 and placed twenty-second out of the 26 participating countries with 64 points.
Background
Prior to the 2018 contest, Slovenia had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest twenty-three times since its first entry in . Slovenia's highest placing in the contest, to this point, has been seventh place, which the nation achieved on two occasions: in 1995 with the song "Prisluhni mi" performed by Darja Švajger and in 2001 with the song "Energy" performed by Nuša Derenda. The country's only other top ten result was achieved in 1997 when Tanja Ribič performing "Zbudi se" placed tenth. Since the introduction of semi-finals to the format of the contest in 2004, Slovenia had thus far only managed to qualify to the final on four occasions. In 2017, "On My Way" performed by Omar Naber failed to qualify to the final.
The Slovenian national broadcaster, Radiotelevizija Slovenija (RTV Slovenija), broadcasts the event within Slovenia and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. RTV Slovenija confirmed Slovenia's participation in the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest on 15 September 2017. The Slovenian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest has traditionally been selected through a national final entitled Evrovizijska Melodija (EMA), which has been produced with variable formats. To this point, the broadcaster has only foregone the use of this national final in 2013 when the Slovenian entry was internally selected. For 2018, the broadcaster opted to organise EMA 2018 to select the Slovenian entry.
Before Eurovision
EMA 2018
EMA 2018 was the 22nd edition of the Slovenian national final format Evrovizijska Melodija (EMA). The competition was used by RTV Slovenija to select Slovenia's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2018, and consisted of two shows on 17 and 24 February 2018. Both shows of the competition took place at the RTV Slovenija Studio 1 in Ljubljana and were broadcast on TV SLO1, Radio Val 202, Radio Koper, Radio Maribor and online via the broadcaster's RTV 4D platform.
Format
The format of the competition consisted of two televised shows: a semi-final held on 17 February 2018 and a final held on 24 February 2018. Sixteen songs competed in the semi-final where a public televote first selected the top four entries to proceed to the final. An expert jury then selected an additional four finalists out of the fourteen remaining songs. Eight songs competed in the final where the winner was selected following the 50/50 combination of points from six thematical juries and a public televote. Each jury assigned points as follows: 1–8, 10 and 12, while the televote assigned points that had a weighting equal to the votes of six jury groups. The song that received the highest overall score when the votes were combined was determined the winner.
Competing entries
Artists and composers were able to submit their entries to the broadcaster between 15 September 2017 and 15 November 2017. 108 entries were received by the broadcaster during the submission period. An expert committee consisting of Maja Keuc, Eva Hren (musician and guitar teacher), Jernej Vene (music editor for Radio Val 202) and Tadej Košir (musician, guitarist and songwriter) selected sixteen artists and songs for the competition from the received submissions. The competing artists were announced on 8 December 2017. Among the competing artists were former Slovenian Eurovision contestants Tanja Ribič who represented Slovenia in 1997 and ManuElla who represented Slovenia in 2016.