After weeks of speculation, this lunchtime the running order for the semi-finals of the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest was officially revealed.

Azerbaijan will open the first semi-final. As we confidently predicted in our recent post, they will be followed by Iceland in the “cannon fodder” second position. Bookies’ favourite Israel gets a comfortable 7th slot in the semi 1 running order, while – as we speculated – the producers have opted to give the intimate Irish entry a late starting position, although it is Cyprus who will have the honour of closing the show.

In the second semi-final, the producers clearly believe that Alexander Rybak’s path to the final will be unhindered by opening proceedings, so viewers will get to enjoy his tips on how to write a song before judging his 17 competitors on the same criteria. The back-to-back Georgia and Hungary option in the second half of the semi has been avoided (boo), but we were right to think that Mélovin from Ukraine could close the show – does this mean he’s definitely bringing the steps, the piano, the pyro and all?

The full running order is as follows:

The countries had previously been drawn into halves of each semi-final at the allocation draw in January.

The semi-finals of the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest will be held on Tuesday 8 May and Thursday 10 May.