Last night saw the second Eurovision Song Contest semifinal, held in Oslo, Norway, in which the last ten countries qualified for Saturday’s final in the same city.
Eastern Europe demonstrated that it continues to send excellent artists to the popular musical extravaganza, with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania, Turkey and Ukraine all qualifying for Saturday’s final. Cyprus, Denmark, Ireland and Israel also went through.
In total, 25 nations will compete in the final of one of the world’s most popular and most watched events. The first semifinal – which took place in Oslo on Tuesday – saw ten countries go through. The winning entries were from Albania, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, Iceland, Moldova, Portugal, Russia and Serbia.
The other five countries are Britain, France, Germany, Spain – who are guaranteed a place in the final by virtue of their funding the event – and the host country, Norway, which as the winner of last year’s contest, with Alexander Rybak’s folk-inspired ballad “Fairytale”, is also guaranteed a place.
The annual contest is watched by an estimated world television
audience of more than 100 million people, and the winner gets to host the event the following year. For the first time, the voting for the Eurovision semifinals and final carried out by a 50–50 combination of the public from across Europe and specialist judges.
Each semifinal chose from a shortlist of 17 countries.
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