This weekend the first of two semi-finals took place in Ukraine, where a total of nine acts performed their entries live on stage, facing a jury and of course the public vote. A total of three qualified to the final, and they will join the next three qualifiers of next week’s semi-final!
Here are the competitors from the first semi-final:
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Constantine – Misto
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Serhiy Babkin – Kriz Tvoyi Ochi
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Laud – Waiting
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Kazka – Dyva
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The VYO – Ng’a-Ng’a
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Kozak System – Mamai
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Vilna – Forest Song
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Pur:Pur – Fire
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The Erised – Heroes
The voting was a mixture of jury and televote, with the jury consisting of 2016 Eurovision winner Jamala, Andriy Danylko better known as Verka Serduchka, and Eugene Filatov, the creator of the group ONUKA.
Now let’s go through the voting, starting with the jury votes. Jamala gave her top points to Serhiy Babkin, Danylko giving his top points to Laud and Filatov to Constantine. However, with the jury points all combined, the top place was Laud with 23 points, Serhiy Babkin with 22, and in a tie on 21 was Constantine and Pur:Pur. All the combined jury results equated to a point from 1 to 9, which was added to the televoting scores.
Speaking of which, the televoters placed Vilna at the top, and The Erised not far behind with 17.66% and 17.48% of the vote respectively. Third favourite was Laud with the song waiting, which received 14.84% of the vote.
With the jury and televoters not agreeing on the best act of the night, it meant that the combined scores were fairly close. Leading the pack was Laud with the song Waiting, and coming second was one of the televoters favourites, The Erised. In third was Vilna, but there were actually three acts tied on 12 points. Although Serhiy Babkin and Pur:Pur were favourites with the jury, it’s televote which takes preference, and so Vilna took the final qualifying spot.
Here are the qualifiers:
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Laud – Waiting
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The Erised – Heroes
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Vilna – Forest Song