Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009

Selection

MTV confirmed in January 2009 that an internal selection will be held to select the Hungarian entry for the 2009 contest. An open call for songs was held until 2 February, with both the performer and song being selected internally.

On February 3, after receiving a total of 105 entries, MTV revealed that they had selected Márk Zentai to represent Hungary at the contest in Moscow, Russia, with the song "If You Wanna Party". However, shortly after the announcement of the proposed Hungarian entry, it came to light that the song selected had been released in 2004 under the title "We Became Friends", which acted as the Swedish Big Brother theme song. Zentai withdrew his song from the selection shortly after this news became apparent, and MTV set about finding a new entrant for the contest.

On February 4, MTV announced that actress Kátya Tompos would replace Zentai as the Hungarian representative, competing with the song "Magányos csónak" (Lonely boat). However the Alliance of Hungarian Popular Music Composers and Songwriters protested that they did not feel as if the jury had long enough to make a correct decision on 3 February, and were dissatisfied with the internal selection instead of a national final where the public could vote for the winner. Other claims were made as well, such as that the songwriters have to be from his or her motherland and that the jury was not professional. MTV, however, stood by their decision of selecting the song internally, as well as revealing that the jury of television and music industry professionals chose the song all day long on 3 February, and that they were satisfied with the jury's decision.

On 10 February, Tompos announced her withdrawal from the contest, alleging she wanted to focus on her theatre career and that she had no time to prepare her participation in Eurovision properly, because she takes part in 8 plays of 3 different theatres. The MTV jury had to convene once again to select another artist to represent Hungary at Eurovision. On 23 February, MTV held a press conference about this year's entrant. They mentioned that the jury chose three songs before the final decision was made to be sure one of them will not withdraw and completely meet the requirements. Then they announced the official entrant, which was Zoli Ádok with the song "Dance With Me"[1].

At Eurovision

Since Hungary is not one of the "Big Four" nor was it the host of the 2009 contest, it had to compete in one of the two semi-finals. At the semi-final allocation draw on 30 January, it was decided that the country would compete in the second semi-final on 14 May 2009.

Zoli performed for Hungary in position 11 in the running order, following Slovenia and preceding Azerbaijan. He failed to qualify Hungary to the final for a second successive year.

On stage, Zoli was joined by three female dancers and two backing vocalists Heincz Gábor and Kasai Jnoffin. In the beginning of the performance, Zoli and his three female dancers wore black and white costumes. Then, the dancers removed Zoli's costume before undressing themselves, with only skimpy dresses remaining on the girls and a skin-tight shirt on the singer. The LED projections during the performance have floating shapes in the verses, and expanding white lines and the words Dance With Me written across them during the chorus.

In Hungary, both the semi-finals and the final were broadcast on M1 with commentary by Gábor Gundel Takács. The Hungarian spokesperson revealing the result of the Hungarian vote in the final was Éva Novodomszky.