After two years, it’s back: the semi-final allocation draw!
Since the 2020 contest was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new draw wasn’t necessary for the 2021 edition but for 2022… we need a new one!

This new allocation will take place in our host city Turin at the Palazzo Madama e Casaforte degli Acaja (Madama Palace), hosted by Carolina di Domenico and Mario Acampa. We will find out wether the countries will perform in the first semi-final on Tuesday the 10th of May or the second one on Thursday the 12th of May. And that’s not all! We will see the Mayor of the previous host city, Rotterdam, hand over the Host City Insignia to the Mayor of Turin: Stefano Lo Russo.

The semi-final allocation daw explained

But how will it all work, is the question!
Well, first it is good to point out that there are certain directly qualified countries, these appear in the final right away without having to compete in the semi-finals because they are either: 1) part of the so-called ‘Big 5’ (Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany and France) 2) last year’s winning country. This year, a special situation arises where last year’s winner, Italy, is actually part of the Big 5! So that means that there are 5 directly-qualified countries in the final (instead of the usual six).
Before the allocation starts, a draw will we held to determine which automatic qualifier will vote in which semi-final (along with the countries competing in that semi-final).

The countries that do have to compete in the semi-finals have been divided over 6 pots. The reason certain countries are placed together in one pot is because of historical voting patterns, based on data gathered by Eurovision’s official voting partner Digame.

This is what the pots for 2022 look like (click on the image to see it on a bigger scale):

This is all done to prevent from countries from one pot to all end up in one semi-final, to prevent ‘friendly voting’, making the semi-finals more exciting in the process and give everyone in the semi-final a fair chance to make the final.

You can follow everything live on this official eurovision.tv livestream:

…or alternatively over at the the stream by RAI.
And ofcourse stay with us live while we guide you through it in our live-blog here below!