168 students in the final round; All events will be broadcast live on ORF-TVthek
Vienna (OTS) – SAG’S MULTI, the ORF’s multilingual speech competition, is entering the final round. The final event will kick off on April 9, 2024 in the ORF Steiermark regional studio in Graz, followed by competitions at five other locations across Austria. The final round will take place from April 24th to 26th at the ORF media campus in Vienna. SAG’S MULTI is already celebrating a special anniversary with its 15th year; ORF has been the organizer of this internationally unique competition since 2020. All events in the final round will be broadcast live on the ORF TVthek and will be available on demand at the end of the respective event. The winners will be honored at a closing ceremony on June 17th in the ballroom of the Vienna City Hall.
This is how SAG’S MULTI works
SAG’S MULTI offers an exciting, multilingual speaking mode. The special thing is that you have to switch between German and your first language or a learned foreign language several times in your speech. Every year there is a new theme that gives students between the ages of 12 and early 20s plenty of space for personal experiences and positions that they would like to advocate for. This year’s main theme is “Have a say, help shape things – my voice, my actions” and aims to stimulate speeches on topics such as identity, climate justice, democracy, racism, Europe, diversity, schools, bullying, mental health or human, women’s and children’s rights set.
In the anniversary year of SAG’S MULTI, students from all over Austria were again nominated to take part and took part in the preliminary round with an uploaded video. 337 speakers presented their speeches in the subsequent main round with another video (approx. 6-8 minutes). In a further step, a jury of almost 100 people decided in 19 meetings whether to take part in the final round, for which 168 students from Austria and, for the first time, South Tyrol qualified. 38 languages were used in the preliminary round and main round in the diverse speeches of the participants in combination with German. The high participation of girls has become a small tradition of SAG’S MULTI. In the anniversary year, 70 percent of the speakers were women.
Final round on nine days throughout Austria
The final round of SAG’S MULTI is now taking place all over Austria. The starting shot will be given on April 9th and 10th in the ORF Steiermark regional studio in Graz with participants from Carinthia and Styria. On April 11th in St. Pölten, in the meeting room of the state parliament in the Lower Austrian Landhaus, a position will be taken in exciting speeches. On April 16th, students from Tyrol and, for the first time, from South Tyrol will take the lectern in the ORF Tyrol regional studio in Innsbruck. On April 18th there will be a final round in the ORF regional studio Upper Austria in Linz for the speakers from Upper Austria and Salzburg and on April 23rd the participants from Burgenland will compete in the ORF regional studio in Eisenstadt. The conclusion is the three days of the final round at the ORF media campus in Vienna for participants from the federal capital (April 24-26).
This year the final rounds will once again be chaired by Federal President Dr. Alexander Van der Bellen, who has been the guardian of SAG’S MULTI for several years, opened with a motivating video greeting.
The ORF as a multimedia platform from SAG’S MULTI
As the organizer, the ORF is offering young people a large stage for the fourth time with the multilingual speech competition SAG’S MULTI. The ORF will broadcast the events of the final round with a live stream on the ORF TVthek and will also show this on the homepage sagsmulti.ORF.at. In total, more than 30 hours of live streaming will be available again. Apart from that, the ORF accompanies the speech competition with programs and formats on radio and television. For the first time, ORF’s partner in the organizational implementation of the events is the Upper Austrian event agency ANKLANG.
Cooperation partners make SAG’S MULTI possible
As cooperation partners, the Federal Chancellery, the HS Timber Group, the City of Vienna, the Vienna Chamber of Labor, the Austrian Chamber of Commerce, the Association of Industrialists, Raiffeisen Lower Austria-Vienna and the Austrian Association of Cities contribute to the implementation of the speech competition.
All further information, including the venues for the final round, start times and participation options, can be found at https://sagsmulti.ORF.at/