Will Tomorrow’s Eurovision Semi Final Allocation Draw Spell Doomsday Blues for Ireland’s Eurovision Hopes?

January 29, 2024

Adrian Kavanagh, 29 January 2024

Figure 1: Countries assigned to different “pots” for the semi-final allocation draw for Eurovision Song Contest 2024 (Australia will be in Pot 2)

The semi-final allocation draw for the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest will take place in Malmö on 30 January. This will tell us what countries (out of the 31 countries that do not qualify directly for the Final) will take part in Semi Final 1 (on Tuesday 7 May) or Semi Final 2 (on Thursday 9 May), which semi-final will be allocated to the “Big 5″/Host countries (Sweden, United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Italy and France) to vote in, and whether a country gets to vote in the first half or second half of the semi-final that they have been drawn into.

The 31 countries that will be taking part in the semi-finals have been allocated to one of five pots. In previous years six pots were involved, so this overall reduction in the numbers of pots does reflect the overall drop in the number of countries taking part in Eurovision over the past few years – 43 countries took part in the 2018 contest in Lisbon, for instance. The pots are drawn up on the basis of post voting trends in order to, as the official Eurovision website puts it, “reduce the chance of so-called neighbourly voting and increase suspense in the Semi-Finals”.

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Pot Luck? Pot Lucked Out! The Draw that Ireland Needed to Get in Tonight’s Eurovision Semi Final Allocation Draw… And Didn’t!

January 31, 2023

Adrian Kavanagh, 31st January 2023

Tonight the semi-final allocation draw for the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest will take place in Liverpool. This will tell us what countries (out of the 31 countries that do not qualify directly for the Final) will take part in Semi Final 1 (on Tuesday 9 May) or Semi Final 2 (on Thursday 11 May), which semi-final will be allocated to the “Big 5″/Host countries (Ukraine, United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Italy and France) to vote in, and whether a country gets to vote in the first half or second half of the semi-final that they have been drawn into.

Figure 1: Countries assigned to different “pots” for the semi-final allocation draw for Eurovision Song Contest 2023 (Australia will be in Pot 2)
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Olé, Olé, Olé, Oh Vienna and Swedish Mean Girls: The Changing Geography of Ireland’s Eurovision vote patterns

January 30, 2023

Adrian Kavanagh, 30th January 2023

Figure 1: Countries assigned to different “pots” for the semi-final allocation draw for Eurovision Song Contest 2023

The most recent posts on this website have involved analyses of Eurovision semi final draws, with specific referrence to what these meant for Ireland’s chances of qualifying for the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest in those years. These analyses did factor in the importance of the contest running order – with a draw placing Ireland in the second half of a semi-final seen as much preferable to one placing Ireland in the first half – but also factored in the importance of having a number of “friendly” Eurovision countries voting in our semi-final. The decision on what was, and was not, a “friendly” country was based on an analysis I carried out in the early 2010s, which was updated in early 2018, that studied the televote patterns of each country in Eurovision between 1918 and 2017, and subsequently drew up maps to illustrate these analyses.

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Carlsberg don’t do Eurovision Semi Final Allocation Draws but if they did… What does the 2022 Eurovision Semi Final Allocation Draw mean for Ireland

January 25, 2022

Adrian Kavanagh, 25th January 2022

The semi final allocation draw for the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest took place earlier today and it was generally a very good one for Ireland.

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Running Orders for 2021 Eurovision Semi Finals – Who Wins/Loses?

March 30, 2021

Adrian Kavanagh, 30th March 2021

The producers of the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest (taking place in Rotterdam in May) have just announced the running orders for the two semi finals. As is always the case, some countries have fared better than others with these semi final allocation decisions.

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Eurovision Semi Final Allocation Draw 2020: What does it mean for Ireland

January 28, 2020

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Adrian Kavanagh, 28th January 2020

Earlier this afternoon the semi final allocation draw for the 2020 Eurovision Song Contest took place in Rotterdam. What did this mean for Ireland? This post will tease out the draw in terms of what was good, not-so-good and bad about this in terms of shaping Ireland’s chances of qualifying for this year’s Final. Read the rest of this entry »

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41 countries take part in the 2020 Eurovision Song Contest: Here are the confirmed Acts/Songs

January 6, 2020

First posted by Adrian Kavanagh on 6th January 2020

Towards the end of 2019, it was confirmed that 41 countries will take part in the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest, which will take place in Lisbon in early May – the Final will take place on Saturday 12th May, with the two semi-finals to take place on Tuesday 8th May and Thursday 10th May. The line up of countries is similar to that of most of the recent Eurovision contests. This time around, Bulgaria and Ukraine return to the contest – having missed the 2019 contest – while Montenegro and Hungary have withdrawn.

10th March 2020: At this stage, we already know all forty one of the acts that will be taking part in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest and have heard forty of the songs (all apart from Russia).

(See the table below for more details). Read the rest of this entry »

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The 2019 Eurovision Song Contest Semi Final Draw

January 28, 2019

Adrian Kavanagh, 28th January 2019

Big 5/Host countries: Spain, Israel, France will show/vote in Semi Final 1, while United Kingdom, Italy and Germany show/vote in Semi Final 2.

 

The Draw: 

This is a bit of a mixed bag from an Irish perspective. The big win here is the fact that the United Kingdom will be voting in this semi final. Other plus points include the fact that a number of other countries who are “relatively” generous to Ireland in terms of Eurovision points are also voting in this semi final, including Denmark, Malta, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, The Netherlands and Romania. However, on the negative side of things, this semi final includes a number of countries that have very strong qualification records – including a number of countries that have qualified from every semi final, bar one, since 2004 – Sweden, Romania, Russia and Azerbaijan – and a number of other countries that have qualified from most of the semi finals that they have taken part in (especially over the last ten years); Norway, Armenia and Denmark. Other countries, such as Austria, Moldova and The Netherlands, have enjoyed a run of good form in the contest in recent years, while it remains to be seen if this year’s high profile X Factor Malta selection process can bring about an improved performance this year for Malta.

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Check out my elections commentary website

October 30, 2018

Check out my elections commentary website – http://www.adriankavanaghelections.org

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Discussing the 2018 Eurovision Semi Final Running Order Allocations

April 3, 2018

Adrian Kavanagh, 3rd April 2018

The running order allocations for the two semi finals of the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv (Ukraine) were announced this morning.

ESCSemiFinal_RunningOrders

This is of interest, as one of the factors that can shape a country’s hopes of winning, or doing well in, the contest is the position in the contest running order that they get to perform in, with the usual rule of thumb suggesting that a later draw position will significantly help a country’s hopes of doing well. Positions in the running order had traditionally been decided by a draw up to the 2012 contest. But since the 2012 contest in Malmo, participating countries have just drawn to decide whether they will perform in the first half or second half of a contest, with the Host TV producers then deciding the running order based on what combination of entries works the best in terms of producing a better TV show. (The Host country is the only one that draws to decide their position in the Final running order and Portugal drew the eight position in the Final running order a few weeks earlier.) That practice has also been used this year and the running order allocations for the two semi finals of the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest were released earlier today by the host broadcaster RTP.  Read the rest of this entry »

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