THE DRAW

The Eurovision semis and final draw took place on the 15th March at the Düsseldorf Arena hosted by Judith Rackers and Sabine Heinrich. Earlier in the year during the a draw was made to select the semi finals that countries would be split into and as to whether they would be drawn the first or second half of their respective draw.

There were wildcards available for 5 lucky countries. The first two countries drawn out of the hat for each of the semis, and the first from the final, would be able to select their own starting position. Then the remaining countries would then be drawn in order.

Semi-Final 1
Poland and Greece are the wildcards and choose 1 and 19 respectively. The whole draw is as follows




Semi Final 2
Slovakia and Latvia are the wildcards and choose 5 and 17, respectively. The rest of the draw is as follows.

For both semis, there will be breaks after song 5 and song 14.


Final
Spain is the wildcard and selects place 22.
France draws 11, followed by Italy at 12. UK is at 14 and Germany picks 16.
The other slots in the final will be selected straight after each semi-final by the qualifying artists.

During the final there will be one break, situated after song 12, which is from Italy.


As you can see, this list has some potential for elevating certain entries and deflating the chances of others.

S-F 1
- Norway has drawn the dreaded number 2 slot, however as this is such a fan favourite I don’t think the draw will have much effect on its qualification chances.
- Finland’s entry is stuck between the rock of Georgia and the high energy of Malta. This could swamp the song, or this difference could make it stand out more.
- Hungary’s well fancied entry comes straight after the break, which is never a good place, as potential voters tend to miss the act straight after a run in proceedings.
- The Greek entry gained last place but I am unsure if this preferential placing will gain them many more votes with their slightly strange song.
- Azerbaijan are second last and this placing has almost guaranteed them a place in the final


SF 2
- Ireland has bagged the coveted final place. Beforehand I would have said this was a borderline case for qualification, but now their chances have increased greatly.
- Israel on the other hand is squashed between FYROM and Slovenia, two very dramatic songs and Dana may well be forgotten about (quite easily)
- We also then have a run of songs (14,15,16, 17) which are all Eastern European pop songs. Will they all run into each other and merge as one?
- Following this run is Denmark’s entry. Again not a favourite to qualify but this draw might give them the few extra votes to gain entry to the final.

This draw has really opened the field up and everthing is to play for!!!

Let's await more news, views and performances to come in the next 8 weeks !