The second 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 remaining 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
Malta
Albania
Greece	Q	Q	Q
Switzerland	Q	Q	Q
Czechia
Austria	Q	Q	Q
Denmark	Q	Q
Armenia	Q	Q	Q
Latvia			Q
San Marino
Georgia	Q		Q
Belgium	Q	Q	Q
Estonia		Q
Israel	Q	Q	Q
Norway	Q	Q	Q
Netherlands	Q	Q	Q

Martin:
Lots of solid qualifiers here, but lots of borderline cases too. Greece, for example, should make it, but if Albania + Greece comes across as an incoherent six minutes then Malta could benefit simply by being more normal in comparison. Belgium has been deeply “meh” at the preview parties and in rehearsals, but it’s surely a good enough song to survive an undercooked performance. I had been resigned to Estonia qualifying for a while now, but their rehearsal footage was so underwhelming that I’ve taken them out again. Meanwhile, if there’s a prediction I’m least sure about here, it’s probably Denmark – “Sand” should have the quality to make it, but I’m concerned it isn’t quite distinctive enough to hit the spot.

Felix:
This semi-final is definitely of a higher standard compared to the abysmal semi-final 1, but Eurovision of the 2020s still feels very cold and sterile to me. I dare to put my absolute favourite into my Q, Denmark, and will probably experience a rude awakening when the 10th envelope tonight is not this one. Austria feels very borderline to me, so we might not rave on Saturday. I left Malta and Georgia out in my prediction because they kind of missed the boat, and neither are good enough to overtrump the has-been-a-thing factor. Netherlands will probably win this semi-final, while Latvia certainly won’t.

Shi:
I would have been completely alright if, say, only 8 songs qualified from the first semi final and we could just use the two extra songs in the second semi. Since we can’t, there is a lot of work figuring out which entries have the best song / performance combination, and for the rest, decide what outweighs the other: song or performance. I am unsure about how well both Latvia and Belgium work on stage, but both have strong songs (and vocals) so I picked both. On the other hand, countries like Malta and San Marino have fun performances but perhaps not enough of a song to make it through. It’s a strong enough semi, though, that given a good performance I wouldn’t rule anything out, even if only just making the cut – which is how Armenia found itself on the list, because why not them, really?

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