The draw for allocating the countries that will compete in the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest semi-finals will be held today at 17:00 CET at Tel Aviv’s Museum of Art. The draw will be streamed live via YouTube.

The Host Insignia Handover Ceremony will be held prior to the Semi-final Allocation Draw at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

Both the Semi-final Allocation Draw and the Host Insignia Ceremony will be conducted by two of this year’s Eurovision hosts Assi Azar and Lucy Ayoub.

Host Insignia Handover Ceremony

The Deputy Mayor of Lisbon Mr. Duarte Cordeiro, will officially hand over the keys to the Mayor of  Tel Aviv, Mr. Ron Huldai, at Tel Aviv’s Museum of Art.

A grand ceremony has been organized for the occasion, where Tel Aviv will officially take over from Lisbon as the Eurovision host city.

The ceremony will be carried out in the presence of Mr. Jon Ola Sand (EBU’s executive supervisor for the Eurovision Song Contest) who will give a short speech on behalf of the EBU.

How to watch?

You can watch the Semi-final Allocation Draw live at 17:00 CET via the following channels:

• Eurovision YouTube Channel
• KAN Official Facebook Live
  

Pot distribution

The 36 semi-final competing countries have been divided and distributed into 6 pots specially for the draw.

The distribution of the countries in the 6 pots has been based on the voting pattern in each country in the past  years. This mechanism is used in order to avoid neighbourly voting and countries that tend to vote for each another ending up competing in the same Semi-final.

Which country is in which pot?

• Pot 1: Albania, Croatia, FYR Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia
  
• Pot 2: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden
  
• Pot 3: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Russia, Ukraine
  
• Pot 4: Australia, Ireland, Lithuania, Latvia, Portugal, Poland
  
• Pot 5: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Hungary, The Netherlands, Switzerland
  
• Pot 6: Cyprus, Greece, Malta, Moldova, Romania, San Marino
  

Due to the request of SRF and approved by the Reference Group Switzerland will participate in the second Semi-Final.

Semi-final Allocation Draw

A total 36 countries have been distributed into 6 pots and will be allocated into one of the 2 semi-finals by a draw. The first draw will determine which country will compete in which semi-final.

Eighteen countries will compete in the first semi-final on 14 May, whilst another eighteen countries will compete in the second semi-final on 16 May. The draw will be supervised by EBU’s Executive Supervisor Mr. Jon Ola Sand.

Another draw will determine the appearance of the country in its respective semi-final (1st half or 2nd half of the semi-final).

Big 5 and Israel voting in semi-final draw

The Big 5 (Italy, France, UK, Spain and Germany) countries and host country Israel will vote in the semi-finals too.

A draw will also determine which country will vote in which semi-final.

Eurovision 2019

A total of 42 countries will compete at the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv next May. 36 countries will compete in the semi-finals, whilst 26 countries will compete in the Grand Final.

The exact running order of the 36 countries competing in the 2 semi-finals on 14 and 16 May will be determined by the producers of the show by late March.

The Big 5 (Spain, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy) and Israel (the host country) are automatically qualified to compete in the Grand Final on 18 May.

The 2019 Eurovision Song Contest is scheduled to be held on 14, 16and 18  May at the Expo Tel Aviv (International Convention Centre) in Tel Aviv, Israel.