This Monday morning the Eurovision Broadcasting Union have revealed the pots for the 2023 semi final allocation draw, taking place on Tuesday 31st January.
The semifinal allocation pots
The 31 countries taking part in this year’s semifinal rounds have been divided into 5 pots. These are split based upon voting patterns, diaspora and other factors, and the countries within a pot will be split evenly among the semis. This will help to ensure that groups of countries with strong voting attachments to each other, such as the Scandinavian countries or Greece and Cyprus, are split as evenly as possible.
The pots are as follows:
| Pot 1 | Pot 2 | Pot 3 | Pot 4 | Pot 5 |
| Albania | Denmark | Armenia | Cyprus | Belgium |
| Austria | Australia | Azerbaijan | Greece | Czech Republic |
| Switzerland | Finland | Georgia | Ireland | Netherlands |
| Croatia | Iceland | Israel | Malta | Moldova |
| Serbia | Norway | Latvia | Portugal | Poland |
| Slovenia | Sweden | Lithuania | San Marino | Romania |
| Estonia |
Pot 1 comprises a Balkan pot, plus Austria and Switzerland, who were with other Western European countries last year.
Pot 2, the largest, is a Nordic pot plus Australia, with Estonia returning to the Nordic pot after spending 2022 with its Baltic neighbours.
Pot 3 makes for a pot made up of the Caucasus nations, as well as Israel, with Latvia and Lithuania joining this grouping this time after being with the aforementioned Estonia, Moldova, Poland and Romania last year.
Pot 4 is the only completely unchanged pot from last year, with the Cyprus-Greece pairing as well as Ireland, Malta, Portugal and San Marino.
Finally Pot 5 takes the Moldova, Poland and Romania grouping and brings them together with Belgium, Netherlands and the Czech Republic.
Ukraine as well as “The Big 5”, who have entries automatically qualified for the Grand Final, do not have a pot, but will be split up between the semis for voting purposes.
How to watch the semifinal allocation draw
This Tuesday 31st January 20:00 CET, the BBC will host the Eurovision semifinal allocation draw live from Liverpool. For those in the UK, it can be watched on BBC Two, and it will also be live on the official Eurovision Youtube channel. The draw will be hosted by AJ Ododu and Rylan.
To see how the draw works, you can watch the last year’s semi-final allocation draw from Turin.
