-->

A Big Weekend For All Eurovision Fans

But it’s not just the UK that’s doing Eurovision stuff this weekend, there are 43 countries that have to select a singer and song. Not everyone is choosing this weekend (although Finland’s final starts just as the UK’s reaches its conclusion) but there are always national finals for you to find through the delights of P2P television. And if you want to keep track of them all, then the Official Eurovision Website (www.eurovision.tv) is for you.

Yesterday saw the Eurovision team choose the countries to appear in the two semi-finals (the running order will be drawn in late March). While Russia are through to the Finals as the host country and last year’s winner; and  the UK, France, Germany and Span get an automatic qualification as “The Big Four” everyone else has to duke it out in two semi-finals for the remaining twenty places. Nine places a night are determined by public vote, and the tenth is decided by a jury.

The drawing for the finals does its best to keep apart countries that have a history of voting together, due to diaspora voting and similar musical tastes (no it’s not political voting as i deconstruct here). For example Sweden and Finland are in the first semi, while Norway and Denmark are in the second semi. This way the song is the major factor in qualifying.

Semi-Final One… May 12th.
Bosnia & Herzegovina, Sweden, Israel, Belgium, Andorra, Czech Republic, Montenegro, Iceland, Georgia, Bulgaria, Portugal, Switzerland, FYR Macedonia, Finland, Belarus, Turkey, Romania, Malta and Armenia.

Semi-Final Two… May 14th.
Slovenia, Denmark, Azerbaijan, the Netherlands, Latvia, Hungary, Serbia, Norway, Ukraine, Greece, Lithuania, Poland, Croatia, Estonia, Moldova, Cyprus, Ireland, Slovakia and Albania.

Oh and the official theme for the 2008 contest was revealed. It’s quite nice – but with no slogan this year, they may have missed the perfect “From Russia With Love” pun in the eyes of the fans, but every commentator will have to decide whether to use it or not on the night if they spot anyone in a dinner jacket.

image

January 31, 2009; Eurovision;

Possibly Related posts:

If this is your first time here, why not consider subscribing to my RSS feed?

Comments

Leave a Reply