By: eurovisionunion
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Date for Semi-Final Allocation Draw Set

A bit of Eurovision admin news this week, with the Semi-Final allocation draw to take place on the 31st of January. The draw will take place in the Column Hall of Kyiv’s City State Administration at 11:00 CET. Also, the President of the City Council in Stockholm, Mrs Eva-Lousie Erlandsson Slorach will be handing over the Host City Insignia to the Kyiv City Mayor, Vitaliy Klychko. For those interested in watching the allocation draw, it will be live streamed on YouTube.

How does the draw work?

The first part of the allocation draw will determine which semi-final the six pre-qualifying countries will broadcast and vote. Just to recap, these six countries are France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the host country Ukraine. At Germany’s request, and with the Reference Group approval, Germany will broadcast and vote in the second semi-final on Thursday the 11th of May.

The next part of the allocation draw will decide which semi-final the remaining countries will perform. Switzerland has also put a request in to compete in the second semi-final, which was also approved by the Reference Group. The first semi-final will feature 18 acts, and the second semi-final will feature 19.

Like in previous years, the exact running order will be decided by the producers of the show. The draw simply determines which half of which semi-final the nations will participate in, rather than their exact positions in the semi-finals.

The 37 semi-finalists have already been allocated into six pots which is done by looking at the historical voting patterns between nations. The result of this strategy is to attempt to eliminate as much of the so-called neighbourly voting, and as a result increase suspense in the semi-finals.

These are the six allocation pots:

Pot 1

  • Albania

  • FYR Macedonia

  • Montenegro

  • Slovenia

  • Croatia

  • Serbia

  • Switzerland

Pot 2

  • Denmark

  • Finland

  • Norway

  • Iceland

  • Estonia

  • Sweden

Pot 3

  • Armenia

  • Azerbaijan

  • Belarus

  • Georgia

  • Russia

  • Israel

Pot 4

  • Hungary

  • Cyprus

  • Greece

  • Romania

  • Moldova

  • Bulgaria

Pot 5

  • Portugal

  • Australia

  • Czech Republic

  • Malta

  • Austria

  • San Marino

Pot 6

  • Belgium

  • The Netherlands

  • Ireland

  • Latvia

  • Lithuania

  • Poland

The Executive Producer of Eurovision 2017, Victoria Romanova has said, ‘We are continuing with our preparations for the Eurovision Song Contest 2017, including the main locations for the Song Contest, working on the creative content of the shows, and we will soon let you know what the stage will look like and who will be the hosts. The insignia ceremony is a significant moment for us where Vitaliy Klychko will receive the Eurovision key and Kyiv takes over from Stockholm as the Host City of the Eurovision Song Contest’