It’s back! After a break in 2021 due to 2020’s cancellation, the semi-final allocation draw for Eurovision 2022 wil take place on 25 January. Fans are already going a little potty, as they analyse the pots which the semi-finalists will be drawn from.
The Eurovision 2022 semi-final allocation draw
The draw is set for Tuesday 25 January at 12:00 CET. It will be broadcast live from the Palazzo Madama e Casaforte degli Acaja (Madama Palace) in Turin. RAI has yet to announce the presenters for Eurovision itself. However, the draw will be overseen by TV hosts Carolina di Domenico and Gabriele Corsi. Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb of Rotterdam and Mayor Stefano Lo Russo of Turin will be among the VIPs in attendance.
The draw will be livestreamed on both the official Eurovision YouTube channel and RaiPlay. Hopefully, it will give us a first taste of what we can expect from the Italians in May.
How the draw works
The big five — that’s Italy, France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom — don’t compete in the semi-finals, so won’t be part of the main draw. However, there will be a preliminary draw to determine which semi-final each of the automatic qualifiers will get ot vote in.
The main draw will decide which semi each of the 36 remaining countries will take part in. They will be randomly picked from six different pots. These pots are created based on past historical votin patterns, calculated by Digame — the EBU’s televoting partner.
We’re back to six pots for 2022 after the number was reduced to five for 2020.
Semi-Final Allocation Pots
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Pot 1
- Albania
- Croatia
- Montenegro
- North Macedonia
- Serbia
- Slovenia
Pot 2
- Denmark
- Australia
- Finland
- Iceland
- Norway
- Sweden
Pot 3
- Armenia
- Azerbaijan
- Georgia
- Israel
- Russia
- Ukraine
Pot 4
- Cyprus
- Greece
- Malta
- Bulgaria
- Portugal
- San Marino
Pot 5
- Estonia
- Lithuania
- Latvia
- Moldova
- Poland
- Romania
Pot 6
- Austria
- Belgium
- Switzerland
- Czech Republic
- Ireland
- Netherlands
Are you excited for the draw? Will you watch the livestream? Let us know below.
I am mostly curious about how the BIG5 will be allocated this year. Will there be 3 acts from the BIG5 voting and showing off on SF-1 and then only 2 acts from the BIG5 voting and showing off on SF-2? In that case, it would make much more sense for Italy to be present on both semi-finals.
It will likely be a 3-2 split with the Big five voting in the semifinals, but I don’t know Which semi will get three countries and which will get two.
Maybe instead of having countries being randomly picked why not have the producers decide which country sings in which semi after all of the songs are chosen? (as they did with the running order since 2013)
This would ensure that a weak song does not qualify simply because it is in a weaker semi as well as ensure that a strong song does not stay in the semi simply because of the other songs.
I like how the pots contain countries that are all buddy-buddy, and then there’s Pot 3 XD
I feel like this shows what an interesting position Lithuania is in when it comes to qualification: while countries like Serbia are usually guaranteed to be split from at least some of its traditional “allies”, Lithuania’s support traditionally comes from Latvia, Norway, the UK and Ireland (and more recently Germany), which are advantageously spread across multiple pots and automatic qualifiers.
I guess the winner of Germany’s 2021 televoting was The Roop themselves rather than Lithuania as a country.The band performed live at the alternative German version of the 2020 contest (Eurovision 2020 – das deutsche Finale), won it with ‘On Fire’, thus gained extra recognition of the national audience for ‘Discoteque’.It’s unlike the pattern of the Lithuanian diaspora in the UK, Ireland, or Norway voting for the yellow-green-red flag even if it’s ‘Rain of Revolution’ representing Lithuania.
I don’t think Germany was so much for Lithuania as they were voting for the Roop. I think if the 2020 contest had happened, Germany would’ve given both sets of 12 points to Lithuania.
Semi Final Allocation (2008-2021) Have you ever wondered how many times each country has been sorted into the first and second semi final since they began in 2008? Well, I did this study over a year ago because I noticed certain countries were always drawn to particular semi finals year after year and it peaked my curiosity. So I painstakingly sorted the years each country (even the inactive countries) was in semi final 1 or 2 and here are the results. I should note that I negated the 2020 allocation because it was reused for 2021. Country: #/# (Semi final… Read more »
When I did my analysis of most common combinations, I included times when nations were included in the draw but withdrew, and treated 2020 and 2021 as one contest
Ireland is usually thrown into a pot with Lithuania and Latvia and Poland so it’s nice to see a change up there.
Though the true change remains to be seen in the draw.
Not that we will qualify anyway.
Pot 2 seems the strongest, at least from what we’ve already heard from them.
These are made to limit the amount of same region countries being in same semi. They also look at who historically votes for each other. It prevents all the Balkan countries being in same semi and voting for each other giving them a big edge on qualifying.
It doesn’t matter how strong a pot is. Most likely there will be three of them in each semi.
I love how it’s always the Balkan countries that people mention and never the Nordic and former USSR ones… But I guess that’s because they never reward each other and boost Sweden and Russia… Right?
smh
The Balkans have more countries, thus more votes. Also, Sweden rarely votes heavily for their fellow Nordics, unless the entry happens to have a Swede on the songwriting team.
Yes I know, but what I meant was that out of all of these pots, the second one might have the biggest qualification rate – as all of them are likely to have strong entries. Not that they’d all wound up in the same semifinal.
australia vibing more nordicly than estonia
They tend to vote more for Nordic countries. Having Australia in your semi is considered votes in hand by countries like Sweden and Iceland.
Estonia is a baltic country, together with Lithuania and Latvia. Not a nordic country. Nothing surprising here.
What do you mean by nothing surprising? Seeing my country Estonia knocked out from the Nordic pot because of AUSTRALIA is honestly very strange to me… Australia is culturally nothing like the Nordics but Estonia has had lots of Nordic influence in history. I see how you love to mention the Baltic thing but it’s just a geopolitical term, which does not apply for culture because Estonians have a completely different original ancestry from Latvia and Lithuania. Btw, Estonians generally don’t identify themselves as Baltic.
Czechs finally feeling that validation as western/central european.
It was also revealed that Gabriele Corsi (Italian commentator in 2021) and Carolina Di Domenico (Italian spokesperson in 2021) will be hosts of the allocation draw
Hi Can someone confirm how the final will work this year. 5 finalists already 10 from each semi. So who will be country 26? and how will they be selected or is the final 25?
only 25 will be in the final
There will be 25 countries in the final this year, 10 from each semifinal and then the big-5.
25 countries in Final like at ESC 2011.
I haven’t thought of this in a while. Because one of the Big 5 won, it means the Final this year will only have 25 countries?
Likely. It was that way in Düsseldorf 2011, when Germany was hosting and Italy was returning.
Thats very good, 25 is enough, because most watchers fall asleep before the 20th song…
Most likely 25, indeed. However, if the USA will be invited, it will be 26 entries in the final.
Can’t wait for the draw and hear people crying in the comments that country X is a 100% NQ while not knowing anything about the entry of the country in question
2018 heat 1 had one of the best ever qualification lists even though the countries had only 11 top 10 places between them in the previous 10 years (3 from Estonia, 2 from Bulgaria and Israel, 1 each from Albania, Austria, Ireland and Lithuania), and only 4 in the top 5 (2 from Bulgaria, Conchita’s win one of the 2 exceptions ) in this period. That meant that the 10 countries between them had fewer top 5 places than Azerbaijan alone, one of the nations they eliminated, over the same period! And yet 3 of them placed in that year’s… Read more »
the slight deviations from a correct alphabetical order are so obnoxious lol, but at least it’s geographically consistent for once
and the fact that they kicked estonia out of the nordic block in favor of australia is hilarious xD
Poor Estonia just wants to be Nordic, but nobody will let them…
(Shout out to any other Scandinavia and the World fan that might be in here)
To be fair, it’s also occurring joke in Hetalia.
We don’t talk about HETALIA thank you.
Well, I actually got into Eurovision because of Hetalia. Not because the show itself mentioned Eurovision (It doesn’t), but because I saw fan recaps of Eurovision songs by years using fan art of the European Hetalia characters to illustrate the song snippets.
Estonia: centuries under Swedish, Danish occupation, same roots with Finns.
Australia: never any kind of connection or cultural influence from the Nordics.
The producers: let’s put Australia in the Nordic pot instead of Estonia!
They look at voting tendency. Australia seems to favor the Nordic countries. Estonia seems to favor their immediate Baltic neighbors.
Not really. Samanta Tina got only 1 point from Estonia.
Only three countries gave her televote points.
Estonian televoters don’t prefer Latvia/Lithuania over the Nordics. Finland almost always wins Estonian televote and there are very few years when Estonia doesn’t give points to the Nordics. Estonia just doesn’t reveive back so much points from the Nordics as it gives to them.
Will they reveal slogan and the logo on that day?
Because as far as I remember both Sweden and Ukraine did the same when they were hosting.
I have been privately compiling what have been the most common match-ups, and, whilst I haven’t finished yet, I have lots of observations: * The most common, which have occurred 100% of the time, include Australia & Slovenia, Iceland & Czech, and Portugal & Czech *really common ones are Croatia & Lithuania, Iceland & Portugal and Greece & Finland. The latter has been fought every year since 2010! * Also Ireland – Lithuania and Israel, Israel – Romania, Albania – Latvia, Finland – Iceland, Finland – Armenia, Armenia – Azerbaijan, Austria – Ireland, Estonia – Moldova and Netherlands-Estonia have been… Read more »
Bulgaria and Russia were drawn together in 2017 but Russia withdrew, so technically they have never been in the same semi final. Same for Czech Republic and Ukraine in 2019.
Something I am curious about is whether or not Greece and Norway will be drawn in the same semi final, considering Amanda Tenfjord. They haven’t been drawn together since 2014 but a draw is a draw. Also, she could have a showdown with Elsie Bay if she wins MGP since their styles aren’t a million miles apart.
You mean Finland, not Czech (who Ukraine fought in 2008 as well), but I am aware of what happened with Russia in 2017 and Ukraine in 2019, but, as they were in the draw, I count them. But I do hope that they face properly this year. It would be interesting for Czech, Greece AND Norway in the same heat, and also wonder for Armenia, though, sadly, other acts have been linked behind Athena’s back, even though she would be the natural choice as my 2020 winner (an opinion I have often expressed very strongly).
Finland and Ukraine as well. They’ve never been together. Could have been in 2019, but we all know what happened with Ukraine.
Australia and Austria could be confusing to viewers.
It would be but it’s a common and hilarious meme, and Slovakia and Slovenia were in the same heat on 3 out of 4 occasions.
I have the impression that, apart from cosmetic changes, I see the same as in 2021