Semi-Final Running Order announced!

After what seemed like an eternity waiting for the announcement, the EBU have given the go ahead for the SVT, the Swedish broadcaster in charge of this year’s contest, to reveal the running order of the semi-finals. As you may recall, a fairly recent change in the contest is that the host broadcaster now decides the running order, rather than be drawn at random chance. This is to ensure the songs are diverse and keep interest in the show on the night.

In the words of Christer Bjorkman, who is the contest producer this year, ‘My goal is to give every song maximum space so it’s surrounded by other songs that make it stand out and shine for three minutes. This also reduces the anxiety surrounding where a country is placed in the running order. Wherever the artist is singing they have a chance to be noticed’

The semi-final and which half a country will perform in is still decided by random draw, which was done back in January. Now, we have a full list of the correct order the songs will be performed in, and here they are!

Semi-final 1

1. Finland

2. Greece

3. Moldova

4. Hungary

5. Croatia

6. The Netherlands

7. Armenia

8. San Marino

9. Russia

10. Czech Republic

11. Cyprus

12. Austria

13. Estonia

14. Azerbaijan

15. Montenegro

16. Iceland

17. Bosnia and Herzegovina

18. Malta

Here’s a recap video from Eurovision.tv with snippets of the songs in order of their performance.

Semi-final 2

1. Latvia

2. Poland

3. Switzerland

4. Israel

5. Belarus

6. Serbia

7. Ireland

8. FYR Macedonia

9. Lithuania

10. Australia

11. Slovenia

12. Romania

13. Bulgaria

14. Denmark

15. Ukraine

16. Norway

17. Georgia

18. Albania

19. Belgium

And here’s another recap video of the songs from semi-final 2 in their correct running order.

What do you think of the running order? Which songs will be impacted, and which will benefit from the order they were given?