The first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2024 is just a few hours away, and so it’s time for us in the escgo! team to predict the first ten qualifiers for the grand final on Saturday.

You can see the choices of Martin, Felix and Shi in the table below – followed by a brief summary of their views!

Country	Martin	Felix	Shi	TEAM
Cyprus	Q	Q	Q
Serbia			Q
Lithuania	Q	Q	Q
Ireland	Q	Q	Q
Ukraine	Q	Q	Q
Poland	Q	Q	Q
Croatia	Q	Q	Q
Iceland		Q	Q
Slovenia
Finland	Q	Q	Q
Moldova	Q
Azerbaijan
Australia		Q
Portugal	Q
Luxembourg	Q	Q	Q

Martin:
Strange old semi, this one. Initially it felt like the first half was going to be a bit of a bloodbath, between song quality and diaspora factors – but I’ve ended up leaving out Serbia and very nearly leaving out Poland too. I’m still not sure about those, to be honest, and I’m certainly not sure about Moldova, but I don’t know – there’s always something weirdly vanilla that qualifies amid all the madness, so maybe the simplicity of their package will pay dividends? Meanwhile, I did not expect Ireland to be the song that picks up all the rehearsal momentum, but here we are – a few weeks ago Bambie was going to be my “surprising outsider” pick for qualification, as they have been all season, but now it’d be something of a surprise if they didn’t make it. See what I mean – strange old semi.

Felix:
I had to find my last remaining pieces of a Eurovision mood in the cellar, and based my prediction on the rehearsal roundup. I know I feel alienated to “current Eurovision” and I know I shouldn’t apply 2010 standards in my prediction, and yet I included Iceland because it stands out for what it is: a bland, old fashioned, uninspired song, that simply relies on Hera’s warm charisma. Out of the many horrors of Eurovision 2024, I included Ireland instead of Slovenia, because it’s even scarier and that’s apparently what matters this year. What drums were for 2005, that’s horror for 2024. Poland could be on the edge to NQ, and Ukraine is probably going to win this semi

Shi:
Do we really need 10 qualifiers from this semi? I don’t think we do. Yet, this is how the math of this works, so my last two qualifiers I picked almost and random, just understanding that something will need to qualify. I picked Serbia because why not have a traditional ballad in the mix, and this one might have a gloriously uninteresting staging but it also has an oddly catchy phrase in “lila ramonda”. I also picked Iceland because when in doubt, go for pleasant competency, I guess. I will not be surprised to see both stay in the semi, though.

Who do you agree with and what do you think will be the big shocks tonight? Let us know in the comments!