Ladies and gentlemen! Our hearts beat tonight from Tel Aviv, Israel, where the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 is currently taking place. Following countless days and hours of preparations, the first live show from the Expo Tel Aviv venue is already a thing of the past, and we now have its 10 winners!

What a show!

Israel and their national broadcaster KAN produced a spectacular 2-hour-long first semi-final, with a total of 17 entries fighting for 10 available tickets to the final event. It seems that this was just a foretaste for a bright second semi-final and of course a breathtaking Grand Final, which will crown the overall 2019 Eurovision winner.

Who’s going through to the final?

A total of 20 countries had voting rights in the first semi-final, including the 17 competing ones, as well as 3 of the 6 automatic finalists, namely Spain, France and the host country of Israel.

While the suspense was reaching at its peak, the presenters Bar Refaeli and Erez Tal announced in random order the 10 lucky entries, which will dare to dream of the Eurovision victory on Saturday. These are:

• Greece
• Belarus
• Serbia
• Cyprus
• Estonia
• Czech Republic
• Australia
• Iceland
• San Marino
• Slovenia

Hence, the 7 countries that are bidding farewell to this year’s Eurovision edition are: Montenegro, Finland, Poland, Hungary, Belgium, Georgia and Portugal.

The eventual result emerged by both the public vote and the 20 national juries, with each one of them casting its own set of points yesterday, during the evening’s Dress Rehearsal. Each voting body (public and national juries) had a 50% stake at the final outcome. However, the full voting breakdown of the two semi-finals will be unveiled only after the Grand Final on Saturday 18 May.

The qualifiers’ press conference

But the night is still young! Following the results announcement, a joint press conference with all 10 tonight’s qualifiers is going to take place in a few minutes. During the event, the 10 countries will be drawn to compete either in the first or in the second half of the final.

The running order of the Grand Final will be decided by the show’s producers and will be announced after the end of both semi-finals on Thursday evening, when we’ll finally know all 26 contenders of the 2019 Eurovision trophy!

Are you happy with the results?
Stay tuned to ESCToday for all the latest developments from the city of Tel Aviv!