The so much awaited running order of the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest semi-finals were revealed by SVT, the Swedish national broadcaster. The 2016 Eurovision Song Contest is scheduled to be held on 12 and 14 May at the Globe Arena in Stockholm.

After a very long delay since the allocation draw which took place last month, the SVT production team released the running order for the two semi-finals of the contest, giving an end to all the nail-biting witing of the fan community. A short explanation given by SVT regarding the delay of the announcement of the running order, includes the fact that this year many countries will be bringing extremely big constructions and installations on stage, which clearly made the decision of finalising the running order, very difficult.

A total of 43 countries will compete at the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest for the coveted Grand Prix.  A total of  37 countries  will battle will battle in the Semifinals on 10 and 12 May, 18 countries will compete in Semifinal 1 on 10 May whilst 19 countries will compete Semifinal 2 on 12 May. The BIG 5 (France, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and Spain) and host country Sweden are pre-qualified to compete in the grand final on Saturday 14 May.

Semifinal 1

#	Country	Artist	Song title
1	Greece	Argo	Utopian Land
2	Hungary	Freddie	Pioneer
3	Moldova	Lidia Isac	Falling Stars
4	The Netherlands	Douwe Bob	Slow Down
5	Finland	Sandhja	Sing It Away
6	San Marino	Serhat	I Didn’t Know
7	Croatia	Nina Kraljić	Lighthouse
8	Armenia	Iveta Mukuchyan	LoveWave
9	Russia	Sergey Lazarev	You Are The Only One
10	Estonia	Jüri Pootsmann	Play
11	Montenegro	Highway	The Real Thing
12	Iceland	Greta Salóme	Hear Them Calling
13	Malta	Ira Losco	Walk on Water
14	Cyprus	Minus One	Alter Ego
15	Bosnia & Herzegovina	Dalal & Deen feat. Ana Rucner & Jala	Ljubav je
16	Czech Republic	Gabriela Gunčíková	I Stand
17	Austria	ZOË	Loin d’ici
18	Azerbaijan	Samra	Miracle

Semifinal 2

#	Country	Artist	Song title
1	Australia	Dami Im	Sound of Silence
2	Israel	Hovi Star	Made of Stars
3	Ireland	Nicky Byrne	Sunlight
4	Serbia	ZAA Sanja Vučić	Goodbye (Shelter)
5	Switzerland	Rykka	The Last Of Our Kind
6	Poland	Michał Szpak	Color of Your Life
7	Latvia	Justs	Heartbeat
8	Lithuania	Donny Montell	I’ve Been Waiting for This Night
9	FYR Macedonia	Kaliopi	Dona
10	Belarus	Ivan	Help You Fly
11	Georgia	Nika Kocharov & Young Georgian Lolitaz	Midnight Gold
12	Romania	Ovidiu Anton	Moment of Silence
13	Slovenia	ManuElla	Blue and Red
14	Ukraine	Jamala	1944
15	Norway	Agnete	Icebreaker
16	Bulgaria	Poli Genova	If Love Was A Crime
17	Denmark	Lighthouse X	Soldiers Of Love
18	Belgium	Laura Tesoro	What’s The Pressure
19	Albania	Eneda Tarifa	Fairytale

The 2016 Eurovision Song Contest is scheduled to be held on 10, 12 and 14 May at the Globe Arena in Stockholm.

If only that article was true! Obviously this is part of our pranks for April Fools day but behind the lines you have to see the criticism to SVT and the EBU for taking so long to release the running order of the semi-finals. The feeling the whole Eurovision fan community has is anxiety and frustration for this delay. Hopefully we will have the official running order very very soon! Until the, Happy April Fools day!

Stay tuned to ESCToday for the latest news on the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest.