Laos will send “Bae” to the first Eurovision Song Contest Asia. The song was confirmed on 24 September 2026 at the end of Sieng Lao: The One, the two-night selection show on which Thinla performed all three of her candidate entries and a combined public and jury vote picked one of them. Laos is the fourth of the eleven participating countries to have a complete entry — artist and song both settled — seven weeks before the Grand Final at the One Bangkok Forum on Saturday 14 November.
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Photo: Eurovision Song Contest Asia — Thinla on the Sieng Lao: The One set, 24 September 2026.
Key takeaways
- The artist was never in play — only the song. VTE9 named Thinla internally on 13 September. Sieng Lao: The One chose between “Bae”, “Star” and “Water”, all three released publicly a week before anyone sang on air.
- The split was 40/40/20, not 50/50. Clause 8.1 of the official Voting Terms governs every national selection: 40% domestic public, 40% jury, 20% rest of world. The 50/50 that circulates in Eurovision coverage is clause 8.2 and applies only to the Bangkok Grand Final.
- No margin was published. Neither VTE9 nor the organisers released totals, percentages or a placing for the two losing songs — consistent with five of the six selections held so far.
- Laos is the fourth of eleven complete entries, seven weeks out from the Grand Final at the One Bangkok Forum on 14 November.
- Structurally it is the longest price in the field. The smallest population at roughly 7.6 million, the smallest domestic industry and the smallest streaming footprint, against a format that rewards reach at every stage.
- There is still nothing to bet on. Ninth consecutive check with no bookmaker and no prediction market listing a single Eurovision Asia market.
On this page
- Key takeaways
- How Sieng Lao: The One worked
- The vote was 40/40/20, not 50/50
- Who Thinla is
- Where the field stands with seven weeks to go
- The betting position
- What happens next for Laos
How Sieng Lao: The One Worked
Laos ran an unusual selection this season, and it is worth being precise about what was and was not decided this week. The artist was never in play: VTE9, Vientiane Capital Television, named Thinla internally on 13 September, making her the first performer ever to represent Laos at a Eurovision-branded contest. What the show decided was the song. Three candidate entries — “Bae”, “Star” and “Water” — were released publicly on 17 September, so voters had a week with the full field before anyone sang a note on air.
The show itself ran across two nights, hosted by Tot Lina and Lanny. On 23 September Thinla performed all three songs back to back. Voting then ran for roughly 24 hours on the official Eurovision Asia website, the same platform used for every other national selection this season, and the result was revealed in a second episode on 24 September. “Bae” won. Neither VTE9 nor the organisers published vote totals, percentages or a placing for “Star” and “Water”, so there is no margin to report — only the winner.
That reticence is consistent with the rest of the season. Of the six national selections held so far, only South Korea published anything resembling a full scoreboard. Anyone trying to read the strength of a Bangkok field from national-final margins is working with almost no data, which matters more than it sounds once markets eventually open.
The Vote Was 40/40/20, Not 50/50
The result was calculated under §8.1 of the contest’s official Voting Terms, updated 28 August 2026: every national song selection is 40% domestic public vote, 40% jury and 20% rest-of-world vote. The 50/50 public-and-jury split that circulates widely in Eurovision coverage is §8.2, and it applies only to the Bangkok Grand Final.
This distinction has now been mis-stated in fan-press reporting of at least four Eurovision Asia national finals this season, including the Philippines, Bangladesh and Nepal. It is not a pedantic point. A 40/40/20 split means a fifth of the outcome of every national final has been decided by people who do not live in the country choosing — an international constituency voting on songs from eleven different markets at once. If you are modelling who arrives in Bangkok with momentum, the rest-of-world component is the part that travels, because it is the only part of a national vote cast by the same population that will be watching in November.
Voters get eight free votes per show and must spread them across at least three entries, with up to ten additional paid votes available. For Laos that rule had an odd consequence: with only three songs in the field, the minimum spread rule forced every voter to back all three. A Lao voter could weight “Bae” heavily, but could not vote for it exclusively. Our full guide to how Eurovision Asia voting works sets out the mechanics in detail.
| Rule | National selection (clause 8.1) | Bangkok Grand Final (clause 8.2) |
|---|---|---|
| Domestic public | 40% | 50% (all public, worldwide) |
| Jury | 40% | 50% |
| Rest-of-world public | 20% | — (no separate pool) |
| Free votes per viewer | 8, spread across at least 3 entries | 8, spread across at least 3 entries |
| Paid votes per viewer | Up to 10 | Up to 10 |
| Effect on the Laos field | 3 songs, so the minimum-spread rule forced every voter to back all three | 11 entries, so the rule is not binding |
The bottom row is the one specific to this result. With a three-song field and a minimum spread of three, no Lao voter could back “Bae” exclusively — only weight it. A win under those conditions says less about the margin than the same win in a ten-act field would, which is another reason the unpublished totals matter less than they look.
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Who Thinla Is
Thinla — formerly Thinlamphone — has been releasing music since 2021 and has put out more than twenty tracks. Her sound is built on the collision of Morlum, the traditional Lao folk form, with contemporary pop, R&B and dance production. That is the single most distinctive thing about the Lao entry: in a field where several countries are sending polished international-facing pop, Laos is sending an artist whose commercial identity is explicitly rooted in a local tradition.
She is not an unknown quantity regionally. She has performed at ASEAN Summit events and at festivals across Southeast Asia, and recently completed a North American tour. Her stated ambition has been to push Lao music beyond its borders, which is a reasonable description of what the contest is for. Our profile of Thinla covers her catalogue and her route to the selection in full.
The structural point remains, though, and it is the reason Laos would be a long price if anyone were pricing it. Laos has the smallest population of any participating country at roughly 7.6 million, the smallest domestic music industry, and by some distance the smallest international streaming footprint. A contest with a 20% rest-of-world component in its national rounds and a 50/50 final rewards reach. Laos starts with less of it than anyone else in the field, and the Laos country page sets out what that means in practice.
Where The Field Stands With Seven Weeks To Go
Laos becoming the fourth complete entry leaves five countries still to name an act and one, Vietnam, still to pick a song. They go in quick succession:
- Thailand — Thailand’s Chosen One, 27 September. Ten acts, host nation, with Sek Loso appearing as a guest. The only country that will not have to travel.
- Bangladesh — Voice of Bangladesh, 30 September, now confirmed for the International Convention City Bashundhara in Dhaka, the country’s largest event venue. Ten acts, hosted by Tahsan Khan.
- Vietnam — The Sound of Vietnam, 3 October. Tóc Tiên is already confirmed as the artist and picks between five songs, all released in full on 20 September as the EP Thanh Âm Việt Nam. Structurally the same shape of selection as Laos just ran.
- Nepal — Nepal Decides, 7 October, postponed from 19 September after the August flash floods. All eleven competing songs were released on 23 September.
- Mongolia (10 October) and Cambodia (17 October) close the calendar.
Two of the four remaining selections — Vietnam and, in a sense, Laos before it — are song-only votes with the artist pre-chosen. That format is new to this contest and it has produced a specific pattern worth noting: in both cases the candidate songs were released in full days before the show, so the public arrived at the broadcast with opinions already formed. That is the opposite of a traditional Eurovision national final, where most viewers hear the songs for the first time on the night.
The six remaining selections, by format
Set out as a table, the run-in has a shape the prose list hides. Two of the six are song-only votes with the artist already chosen, and both released the candidate songs in full days before anyone sang on air.
| Date | Country | Artist decided? | Field | Songs released in advance? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 September | Laos (complete) | Yes — named 13 September | 3 songs | Yes, 17 September |
| 27 September | Thailand | No | 10 acts | No |
| 30 September | Bangladesh | No | 10 acts | No |
| 3 October | Vietnam | Yes — Tóc Tiên | 5 songs | Yes, 20 September |
| 7 October | Nepal | No | 11 songs | Yes, 23 September |
| 10 October | Mongolia | No | Unannounced | No |
| 17 October | Cambodia | No | Unannounced | No |
That last column is the one worth watching. Where the songs are out days ahead, the broadcast stops being a discovery event and becomes a ratification of something the audience has already formed a view on, and the winner tends to be the entry that was already circulating rather than the one that performed best on the night. Laos and Vietnam are both built that way, and Nepal has released its eleven songs in advance without pre-selecting the artist — a third shape again.
For anyone trying to read the Bangkok field, that matters more than the margins nobody published. A song-only final tells you what a domestic audience thought of three or five songs by one artist. It tells you nothing about how that artist compares with ten competing acts, which is the comparison a Grand Final actually runs. Four of the eleven entries will arrive having never been tested against a domestic field at all.
The Betting Position: There Is Still Nothing To Bet On
We check this every few days and the answer has not changed. As of 25 September 2026, no bookmaker and no prediction market we track lists a single Eurovision Song Contest Asia market — not an outright winner, not a top three, nothing. That is the ninth consecutive check with nothing listed. There is no price on Laos, no price on “Bae”, and no price on the Bangkok winner, and we would rather say that plainly than write a betting section that implies otherwise.
The absence is getting harder to explain. The contest is seven weeks out. Six of eleven acts are confirmed, four of them with songs, and most of the remaining candidate songs are already public, tickets go on general sale on 2 October, and the organisers have just moved the Grand Final to a larger venue. Polymarket’s only live Eurovision board is the 2027 participants market, which carried about $26,000 of lifetime volume when we read its Gamma API on 25 September — a fraction of the roughly $194m that traded on the 2026 European winner market, and still nothing at all on Asia.
If and when a market does open, the honest read on Laos is that it is an outsider, and the value would not be in the outright. The angles that would actually be priceable are sub-markets: bottom three, jury bottom three, highest-placed Southeast Asian entry, and any market on language, where a Morlum-inflected Lao-language entry is distinctive in a field drifting towards English. Compare that with the Eurovision Asia hub, which tracks every confirmed act and every remaining selection date, and with our Eurovision winner odds page for how a mature market on the European contest actually prices a field.
What Happens Next For Laos
Nothing further is scheduled to be revealed. With the artist and song both settled, the remaining Lao milestones are the same as everyone else’s: the running-order draw, the rehearsal period in Bangkok, and the Grand Final itself on 14 November at the One Bangkok Forum, with a full preview show the night before on 13 November. The contest moved to that venue on 21 September from the smaller IdeaLive hall at BRAVO BKK, adding roughly 50% more capacity; no reason for the move has been published.
The one genuinely open question for Laos is staging. Thinla’s appeal rests on a fusion sound that is culturally specific, and the gap between how that reads to a Lao audience and how it reads to a rest-of-world audience voting on eleven songs in one sitting is the variable nobody can price yet. It is also, for what it is worth, the most interesting thing about the Lao entry. Reporting on the result came from Eurovoix and the official Eurovision Song Contest site.
Correction, 28 September 2026: this article said no prediction market had opened a Eurovision Asia market. That was wrong when it was published. Kalshi, the CFTC-regulated US exchange, opened an eleven-country Eurovision Asia winner market on 14 September 2026. It is thin: on 28 September the last trades summed to 143% of the field, nine of the eleven contracts had no bid at all, and Laos accounted for about three-quarters of every contract ever traded. Our full coverage of the first Eurovision Asia market →