Eurovision is officially Swiss — Semi Final Allocation Draw is complete
The 2025 Eurovision Song Contest is now in Swiss hands. Hosted by Jennifer Bosshard and Jan van Ditzhuijzen, in today’s Semi Final Allocation Draw ceremony, the Contest was offically ‘handed over’ from Malmö to Basel, and all countries have been sorted into the two Semi Finals.
What is an ‘Allocation Draw’ anyway?
Simply put, this is the event where we will find out in which of the two Semi Finals each country will compete this May. Yet there is some more pomp and circumstance to it.
The 2025 Draw
The ceremony began at Basel’s Art Museum with special commemorative insignia handover from Malmö to Basel. From 2007-2024, each country added a special insignia to a giant keyring to mark its hosting — as a result, the keyring now weighs over 30kg!
However Basel has started a new tradition, where a ‘friendship gift’ will be presented from the previous host. Malmö offered a dress in the style Nemo wore to the Turquoise Carpet in 2024, adorned with the theme art of Eurovision 2024 and the words “From Malmö to Basel with Love”.
In the first part of the draw, the pre-qualifying countries are assigned one of the two Semi Finals to vote in. These are the ‘Big 5‘ countries (France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and Spain), plus last year’s winner Switzerland. These six countries are not drawn from the pots as they will automatically perform in the Grand Final and do not compete in the Semis. Here is the result for 2025:
Semi Final 1 | Semi Final 2 |
🇮🇹 Italy | 🇫🇷 France |
🇪🇸 Spain | 🇩🇪 Germany |
🇨🇭 Switzerland | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom |
Thus the remaining 31 Semi Final countries were grouped into five pots based on their recent voting patterns. This is done in an attempt to making the voting more equitable. This reduces the chances that each Semi Final will not be populated by countries with higher chances of voting for each other.
Jennifer and Jan then drew each country from the pots and then drew again to determine if each country will perform in the first or second half of its Semi Final.
*The precise running order will be determined later (usually in April) by the show’s producers and the EBU once all songs have been submitted by mid-March.
Here is what the Semi Finals of Eurovision 2025 will look like:
Semi Final 1 | Semi Final 2 | ||
1st Half | 2nd Half | 1st Half | 2nd Half |
🇪🇪 Estonia | 🇦🇱 Albania | 🇦🇲 Armenia | 🇨🇿 Czechia |
🇮🇸 Iceland | 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan | 🇦🇺 Australia | 🇩🇰 Denmark |
🇵🇱 Poland | 🇧🇪 Belgium | 🇦🇹 Austria | 🇫🇮 Finland |
🇵🇹 Portugal | 🇭🇷 Croatia | 🇬🇷 Greece | 🇬🇪 Georgia |
🇸🇮 Slovenia | 🇨🇾 Cyprus | 🇮🇪 Ireland | 🇮🇱 Israel |
🇸🇪 Sweden | 🇳🇱 Netherlands | 🇱🇻 Latvia | 🇱🇺 Luxembourg |
🇺🇦 Ukraine | 🇳🇴 Norway | 🇱🇹 Lithuania | 🇲🇹 Malta |
🇸🇲 San Marino | 🇲🇪 Montenegro | 🇷🇸 Serbia |
If you missed today’s ceremony, you can find it on YouTube below!
Are you happy with your country’s Semi Final Allocation? Let us know in the comments below or on our socials @escbubble!