Yleisradio (Yle) held the national final on 13 February 1988 at the Kulttuuritalo in Helsinki, hosted by Sini Sovijärvi.

Two of the songs, Helena Miller's "Svart och vitt" and Benny Törnroos's "I november", were written in Swedish, which is a national language in Finland as well.

[1] On the night of the final Boulevard performed third in the running order, following Sweden and preceding the United Kingdom.

The band had to deal with a technical malfunction when the backing track temporarily faded out halfway through the song.

At the close of voting "Nauravat silmät muistetaan" had received only 3 points, placing Finland 20th of the 21 entries, ahead only of the nul-points song from Austria.