It’s that time of year again! We may be in the middle of the first national finals, but the allocation draw for the forthcoming ESC is when we really know the on-season is underway – even if (as always) there’s only so much we can really learn from the outcome at this early stage.
This lunchtime saw the allocation draw for the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest taking place at Palazzo Madama e Casaforte degli Acaja in Turin. As in recent years, the countries had previously been divided into “pots” based on their voting history with the aim of ensuring a balanced spread across the two semi-finals. To allow the delegations to make their travel plans based on the preliminary rehearsal schedule, the participating countries were also assigned to either the first or second half of the respective show.
Presented by Carolina di Domenico and Mario Acampa, the ceremony also saw the host city insignia being passed between the previous host city, Rotterdam, and the 2022 host Turin.
The draw was as follows:
| SEMI-FINAL 1 | SEMI-FINAL 2 | |
| First half | First half | |
| Albania Bulgaria Latvia Lithuania Moldova Netherlands Slovenia Switzerland Ukraine |
Australia Azerbaijan Cyprus Finland Georgia Israel Malta San Marino Serbia |
|
| Second half | Second half | |
| Armenia Austria Croatia Denmark Greece Iceland Norway Portugal Russia |
Belgium Czech Republic Estonia Ireland Montenegro North Macedonia Poland Romania Sweden |
The “big five” countries including host Italy, who are already qualified for the grand final, were also assigned to the semi-finals that they are required to broadcast and vote in:
France and Italy will vote in the first semi-final on Tuesday 10 May.
Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom will vote in the second semi-final on Thursday 12 May.
As has been the case since ESC 2013, the exact order of performance will be decided by the producers once all the entries have been chosen, the aim being to create a varied and interesting running order.
A few days previously, the theme art and slogan for the 2022 contest were presented – you can see the logo at the top of this article. “The Sound of Beauty” are the words with which ESC 2022 will be presented to the world, and the officlal site offers a long and not uninteresting explanation of the thinking behind this year’s visual identity. Opinions on the logo and accompanying visuals have been divided, mostly rather depending on how you respond to the general sense of “brown-ness” that pervades the whole thing. (Or perhaps the colour is meant to be reminiscent of the very prominent sponsor and its product…) In any case, it certainly makes a change from lots of blue and an innuendo-laden slogan, and we look forward to seeing it in action in Turin!
You can re-watch today’s allocation draw here:
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