Today, in the Rotterdam City Hall, the Dutch city will officially and symbolicaly take over the hosting duties of the Eurovision Song Contest from Tel-Aviv. After the “host city insignia” ceremony, the Eurovision 2020 hosts will proceed to the allocation of the ESC 2020 participants to the two semi-finals.
Five pots, two semis
Before the allocation draw, the EBU revealed the pots from which each country will be drawn. Pots are there to split countries that, when grouped together, are more likely to vote for each other.
Examples of such blocks are the Nordic countries, but also the ex-USSR or ex-Yugoslav countries. Certain duos, such as Greece/Cyprus are also in the same pot, but there’s no guarantee that the pot system will actually split them.
As the pots were revealed, we analysed the patterns they set out. You can read our full analysis here. This year, there are five pots of seven countries each.
| Pot 1 | Pot 2 | Pot 3 | Pot 4 | Pot 5 |
| Albania | Australia | Armenia | Bulgaria | Belgium |
| Austria | Denmark | Azerbaijan | Cyprus | Czech Republic |
| Croatia | Estonia | Belarus | Greece | Ireland |
| North Macedonia | Finland | Georgia | Malta | Israel |
| Serbia | Iceland | Moldova | Portugal | Latvia |
| Slovenia | Norway | Russia | Romania | Lithuania |
| Switzerland | Sweden | Ukraine | San Marino | Poland |
The Insignia Exchange Ceremony
Since 2007, Host Cities have added their insignia to the immense ring of the picture above. Before the semi-final allocation draw, Tel-Aviv officially added their insignia to the ring and passed it over to Rotterdam, symbolically handing them over the hosting duties of Eurovision.
The semi-finals allocation
The ceremony will be hosted by the Eurovision 2020 hosts and presenters, Chantal Janzen, Edsilia Rombley and Jan Smit.
The Big Five and Host
Every year, the Big Five (Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the UK) and the hosts (The Netherlands) are automatically in the Final. But they still vote in the semi-finals, so need to be allocated.
The rest of the countries
Jon Ola Sand has confirmed that no countries made any special request, so the draw will involve all 35 countries. 17 countries will take part in SF1, and 18 in SF2.
Semi-final 1
Semi-final 2
What do you think? Who’s the luckiest, and who had less fortune in this draw? Stay tuned for our own analysis of the winners and losers of the draw in the coming days!
