Tonight, the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 will be held. 16 countries will compete for the 10 available tickets for the grand final on Saturday! You can read up here how the first dress rehearsal of tonight’s show went.

As every year, we from the esc-chat.com team make our own predictions, but this time – we think we can speak for everyone – it’s especially hard!

Nevertheless, we were compiling our qualifiers, and calculated them to the esc-chat.com prediction:

Sure qualifiers: Armenia, Sweden, Russia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, The Netherlands, Hungary
Likely qualifiers: Portugal
Borderline qualifiers: Estonia, Iceland, Belgium

In this table, you can see detailed, who of our editors predicts which songs to qualify. Further down, each of us is explaining why we think a country will qualify.

Country	Martin	Felix	Shi	Danny	TEAM
1. Armenia	Qualify	Qualify	Qualify	Qualify	100%
2. Latvia		Qualify			25%
3. Estonia			Qualify	Qualify	50%
4. Sweden	Qualify	Qualify	Qualify	Qualify	100%
5. Iceland	Qualify	Qualify			50%
6. Albania					0%
7. Russia	Qualify	Qualify	Qualify	Qualify	100%
8. Azerbaijan	Qualify	Qualify	Qualify	Qualify	100%
9. Ukraine	Qualify	Qualify	Qualify	Qualify	100%
10. Belgium	Qualify			Qualify	50%
11. Moldova	Qualify				25%
12. San Marino					0%
13. Portugal		Qualify	Qualify	Qualify	75%
14. The Netherlands	Qualify	Qualify	Qualify	Qualify	100%
15. Montenegro			Qualify		25%
16. Hungary	Qualify	Qualify	Qualify	Qualify	100%

Armenia:

Shi: “We might not know if it really is a winning song, but qualifier it sure is.”

Felix: “10 songs have to qualify, and Armenia is surely among them – but I can’t see such a dark song with unusual structure winning the hearts of Europe.”

Martin: “The powers-that-be are confident enough in Aram’s qualification that they’ve given him the potentially unfavourable opening slot in the running order, and I’m confident too.”

Danny: “Strong opener to the contest and is likely to be up near the top of the scoreboard.”

Latvia:

Felix: “If songs like Everybody and I Wanna can win the whole thing, then this can well qualify with its amateur charme – and it’s also instant sing-along.”

Estonia:

Shi: “Loreen meets Flashdance, an uptempo dance track and some great vocals.”

Danny: “One of the only few uptempos in this semi and is sing well so will be liked by the juries.”

Sweden:

Shi: “Lights and jury rehearsal drama or not, this looks great on stage and screen and was always going to qualify anyway.”

Felix: “Borderline qualifier, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this was too sterile and cold to make the final – Belgium might instead.”

Martin: “Sanna isn’t the second coming of popular music, but she’s no goat-voiced Anna Bergendahl either. The juries in particular will ensure this qualifies with ease.”

Danny: “Has both jury and televote support from all over Europe and is competently performed.”

Iceland:

Felix: “Colourful, fun, catchy song – that should be enough to get a ticket for Saturday.”

Martin: “As noted elsewhere, something fun has to qualify from this otherwise quite downbeat semi-final. I think “No Prejudice” is a far stronger song than the offerings from Latvia and Portugal, so that’s why I’m putting them through.”

Russia:

Shi: “Innocent looking girls, impressive stage, the token gimmick and pleasant pop track to boot.”

Felix: “A good enough song, that’s all.”

Martin: “Forget the political situation, forget the twins’ inexperience – this is a middle-of-the-road pop song with enough about it to qualify on its own merits.”

Danny: “Despite their issues, this is a decent enough song performed well and at Eurovision, Russia still has a lot of support around Europe.”

Azerbaijan:

Shi: “Their song might be beautiful but completely unmemorable, so they made up for it by having a beautiful AND a memorable staging and performance.”

Felix: “Azerbaijan creates a very distinctive atmosphere here – the land of fire will warm the hearts across Europe once more.”

Martin: “Not just a qualifier but a potential winner of the first semi-final. Gorgeous and coming across very well in the rehearsals.”

Danny: “The juries are going to love this, Azerbaijan have never failed before and they are not going to start now.”

Ukraine:

Shi: “Uptempo, slick, sexy. Textbook Ukraine-in-Eurovision, and this can only mean one thing. Qualification.”

Felix: “A catchy, crisp song with a decent performance – and it’s from Ukraine.”

Martin: “Could have been a Svetlana Loboda-style mess on stage, but it sounds as if they’ve reined in the excess, at least by Ukrainian standards!”

Danny: “Great pop song with an gimmick and they could possibly get some sympathy votes.”

Belgium:

Martin: “I still can’t take this song seriously, but there’s an audience for it – it just doesn’t include me.”

Danny: “Despite the diabolical lyrics and creepy dancer, I think much of Europe will fall under Axel’s spell. I’d love to be wrong though.”

Moldova:

Martin: “Moldova have a habit of dragging quite average songs through to the final with impactful visual performances, and I expect the trend to continue tonight.”

Portugal:

Shi: “A less likely qualifier, but the crowd pleaser of this otherwise quite dark semi final.”

Felix: “Another borderline qualifier, and I might be under the influence of the Suzymania here – but it could well be cheerful enough to shake the final!”

Danny: “This is my outsider bet, it’s catchy and loads of fun and Suzy performs it well.”

The Netherlands:

Shi: “Different from anything else and should be right up the jury ally (and wouldn’t be surprised if it has a sizeable televote audience, too).”

Felix: “Calm, intimate, striking – and a subtle song that could well win over all the others.”

Martin: “The rising star after the rehearsals, we should be careful not to overrate the chances of what is, after all, a very “western” song – but it should be enough for qualification.”

Danny: “Nothing else like this in the semifinal, it’s a traditional song that the older audience will appreciate.”

Montenegro:

Shi: “It’s the one I am the least confident about, but with half of Europe voting on this semi, the ethnic music lovers need something to vote for and there aren’t many options.

Hungary:

Shi: “Contemporary, different, has a strong melody and a charismatic singer (even if I personally really don’t like him) and the perfect draw.”

Felix: “If I had to describe this strong entry with just one word, then it would be ‘thrilling’. The facial expressions might be overdone, but this is qualifying anyway.”

Martin: “My best bet for semi-final winner, and not only because of the running order. Strong vocals, strong visuals and making a real impact.”

Danny: “Great presentation and this song has a message that will resonate to many people around Europe.”

And now we wish you a great show! The first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 begins at 21:00 CET. Join our chat and be part of the fun!