On the evening of 29 March 2026, eurovisionasia.com quietly went live. It named a date, a host city, and nine competing countries. A few hours later it was offline.
Two days after that, everything on it turned out to be true.
Nobody has written up what the leak actually contained versus what was announced — and the differences are more interesting than the similarities.
What the site said
The page, archived before it disappeared, stated that the inaugural Eurovision Song Contest Asia would take place on 14 November 2026 in Bangkok, with entries chosen through national processes.
Nine countries were listed:
Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam.
Promotional graphics tied to the site described a platform called Zoop as the official digital platform and fan engagement partner, with features including live broadcast access and fan tools.
ESCXTRA reported the leak on 30 March, noting that no organiser had confirmed anything.
What changed two days later
The formal announcement landed on 31 March 2026. Compared to the leak:
The date and city were identical. 14 November, Bangkok — later specified as IdeaLive at BRAVO BKK.
The country list grew by one. South Korea was added, taking the announced field to ten. Korea was absent from the leaked page entirely, which suggests ENA’s participation was confirmed in the final days before launch — a notable detail given Korea is now the largest music market in the contest.
The organisational structure was filled in. EBU and Voxovation as organisers, S2O Productions producing, Thailand’s Channel 3 as host broadcaster.
The name was confirmed as Eurovision Song Contest Asia.
The scepticism was reasonable
Worth remembering the context. Seven months earlier, the EBU had publicly stated there were no confirmed plans for an Asian contest and had a Bhutanese national final taken off air and deleted.
So when a website appeared and vanished, plenty of people assumed it was another false start. Euronews ran a piece on 30 March asking whether it would happen at all.
In December 2025, Voxovation founder Christer Björkman had said on a podcast that intensive preparations were underway with a public reveal hoped for reasonably soon. In hindsight that was the clearest signal available.
Why the name kept “Eurovision”
One detail from the announcement period that gets little attention: the Eurovision name was retained for an all-Asian contest at the request of the prospective participating broadcasters themselves.
That is worth sitting with. The brand equity was considered valuable enough by Asian broadcasters that they wanted it, rather than having it imposed.
What the leak tells you about the contest
Three things.
- The nine-country core was locked early. Those broadcasters had been signed for some time. Mongolia, which joined in August, took the field to eleven — see our breakdown of Mongolia’s late entry.
- Korea was a late confirmation, which matters for anyone modelling how committed the biggest markets are.
- The digital-first framing was there from day one. A fan engagement platform appeared in the leak before a single artist was announced, consistent with a contest built around YouTube and international voting rather than domestic broadcast alone.
For the confirmed lineup and dates, see our national selection calendar. For how the market is pricing each country, our odds page.
Last updated 25 August 2026.