Votes from the second Semi-Final's juries and viewers are in! Who received the final ten invites to attend the Eurovision Song Contest's Grand Final?
The Eurovision Song Contest's second semi-final started off similarly to the first. Instead of a Rise Like a Phoenix reprise, though, we got a brief visual overview of Tuesday's semi-final, and a hearty welcome from the hosts before the parade-of-nations style introduction of performers. The hosts seemed less stiff time around, and the production more well-organized, with one major off-note: they apparently didn't make the green room platform fully accessible? Because instead of coming down from the platform and crossing the floor, Poland had to start at the bottom of the platform stairs and come onstage using a different path. Oops.
On a more positive note: in between the freshly-harmonized backing vocals and what seemed like a plague of pitchiness, we were treated to a heaping helping of Conchita looking stunning. Seriously:
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Eurovision Song Contest Second Semi-Final: Live Part One (Photo: Andres Putting / EBU)[/caption]
Oh, yeah, and some great performances on the mainstage too: a sweet love ditty from Lithuania, intimate monsters from Norway, golden feet from Israel, and emotional support from Slovenia. The juries and voters have spoken, so without further ado, here are the final ten qualifying countries for Saturday's Grand Final:
Although not quite as good as Tuesday, our predictions for the second semi-final correctly placed eight qualifiers. We missed just Cyprus and Montenegro, both of which could reasonably be called spoilers. Of the nine rankings we used for our predictions, only two correctly predicted either Cyprus or Montenegro (with no ranking successfully predicting both). Meanwhile, the two countries we incorrectly predicted would qualify -- Iceland and Malta -- were relative favorites. Malta was predicted in six of nine categories, while Iceland was predicted in eight of nine. We might have been wrong, but at least we were in good company!
Other notes:
- Every member of the WEIO team predicted Israel would place 9th. Israel played in the 9th spot tonight. Coincidence, or CONSPIRACY?((Rankings from the semi-finals won't be released until after the Grand Final.))
- Israel has qualified for the first time since 2010, despite some strong performances over the last few years. Meanwhile Azerbaijan has qualified but appears to be losing its once-consistent grip on the Grand Final's top ten.
- The final running order for the Grand Final has been announced; Slovenia will open the contest, so don't be late getting into your seat!
The Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest will take place Saturday at 9pm CET / 3pm Eastern / 12pm Pacific. You can catch up with both semi-finals, and watch the Grand Final live, on the Eurovision YouTube channel. Be sure to check out the performances with International Sign Language interpretations! They're delightful, and in some cases better than the actual stage performances.((cough*Netherlands*cough))