Tonight, the first semifinal of the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 took place in Liverpool’s M&S Bank Arena. Ten countries have made it through to the final. We have unfortunately had to say goodbye to five of them. Below, you can see which countries we will see again on Saturday’s Grand Final.
Ten envelopes, ten countries for the Eurovision final
The show tonight, hosted by Alesha Dixon, Hannah Waddingham and Julia Sanina saw 15 acts fighting for just ten tickets to the final of the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest. The hosts revealed the qualifiers in the following order, which is random.
For the first time ever, all ten qualifiers were chosen exclusively by the televoting public, which consisted of the countries competing in this semi-final, plus France, Germany and Italy. Also, we saw the debut of the Rest of the World vote, whose votes were aggregated and distributed as one ‘country’.
The order below does not reflect the semi-final result, just the order they were announced in:
- Croatia: Let 3 – Mama ŠČ!
- Moldova: Pasha Parfeni – Soarele și Luna
- Switzerland: Remo Forrer – Watergun
- Finland: Käärijä – Cha Cha Cha
- Czechia: Vesna – My Sister’s Crown
- Israel: Noa Kirel – Unicorn
- Portugal: Mimicat – Ai Coração
- Sweden: Loreen – Tattoo
- Serbia: Luke Black – Samo mi se spava
- Norway: Alessandra – Queen of Kings
The unlucky five
The following five songs did not get enough points to qualify and will not be performing in Saturday’s Grand Final:
- Malta: The Busker – Dance (Our Own Party)
- Latvia: Sudden Lights – Aijā
- Ireland: Wild Youth – We Are One
- Azerbaijan: TuralTuranX – Tell Me More
- Netherlands: Mia Nicolai & Dion Cooper – Burning Daylight
The full televoting breakdown for the semi-final will be released on Sunday morning.
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