VIENNA (AP) — The Eurovision Song Contest final lineup was decided after Thursday’s second semifinal, with 5 more countries advancing and 5 eliminated ahead of Saturday’s finale. Fifteen countries competed for 10 of the 25 total places in the final, with the results determined by votes from national juries and viewers around the world.
The countries that reached the final after the second semifinal included Denmark’s Søren Torpegaard Lund, who performed “Før Vi Går Hjem,” and Australia’s Delta Goodrem, who sang the power ballad “Eclipse.” Bulgaria’s Dara also qualified with “Bangaranga,” joining the other acts announced as advancing from Thursday’s semifinal.
Other qualifiers named after the second semifinal included Czech Republic’s Daniel Žižka, Ukraine’s Leléka, Albania’s Alis and Malta’s Aidan. Additional advancing acts were Antigoni from Cyprus, Alexandra Căpitănescu from Romania and Jonas Lovv from Norway.
Alongside those qualifiers, performers from Azerbaijan, Luxembourg, Armenia, Switzerland and Latvia were eliminated from the contest after Thursday’s second semifinal. With those results, the final field is now made up of the second-semis qualifier group, plus acts that earned spots through an earlier semifinal on Tuesday.
Ten other acts also secured final places through the Tuesday semifinal, including Finland’s Pete Parkkonen and Linda Lampenius, Greek rapper Akylas, Serbian goth metal band Lavina, Moldovan folk-rapper Satoshi and Israeli singer Noam Bettan. That leaves 25 finalists for Saturday, made up of qualifiers from the semifinals and a group of automatic entries.
The Eurovision rules ensure automatic qualification for the final for the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy because they are among the contest’s biggest funders. Austria, last year’s winner, also gets a place in the final as host country, while the remaining countries compete for the remaining spots across the two semifinals.
Organizers also face political friction around Eurovision’s participation this year. The contest’s motto is “United by Music,” and it aims to steer clear of politics, though past editions have drawn protests, including during the 2024 contest in Malmo, Sweden, and last year’s event in Basel, Switzerland, where pro-Palestinian protests called for Israel to be expelled.
A demonstration against Israel’s participation is planned ahead of Saturday’s final in Vienna, and five countries — Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Iceland — are boycotting Eurovision this year because of Israel’s inclusion. The European Broadcasting Union, which runs Eurovision, said allegations that Israel ran a rule-breaking marketing campaign to get votes for its contestants helped prompt tighter safeguards, including halving the number of votes per person to 10 and tightening safeguards against “suspicious or coordinated voting activity.”
Israel’s Bettan drew protest chants during Tuesday’s semifinal, though the broadcaster ORF said Palestinian flags are being allowed in the arena and that it will not mute any booing. Eurovision organizers said the boycotts are a revenue and viewership blow, and they pointed to an audience of 166 million viewers worldwide last year, while noting the number of participants this year is the lowest since 2003.
Contest director Martin Green told reporters Thursday that he is hopeful Hungary will return to Eurovision for the first time since 2019 after Prime Minister Péter Magyar replaced Viktor Orbán as Hungary’s leader. Green also said “the door remains open to the five boycotting countries,” adding, “We’ve made it very clear to them we can’t wait for them to come back.”
Eurovision’s outreach is not limited to Europe: organizers said a spinoff, Eurovision Song Contest Asia, is due to take place in Bangkok in November.