The draw for allocating the countries that will compete in the 2020 Eurovision Song Contest semi-finals will be held today at 16:10 CET at Rotterdam’s City Hall (Stadhuis). 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 Rotterdam Stadhuis.

Both the Semi-final Allocation Draw and the Host Insignia Ceremony will be conducted by Edsilia Rombley, Chantal Janzen and  Jan Smit.

Host Insignia Handover Ceremony

The Deputy Mayor of Tel Aviv Ms. Zippi Brand, will officially hand over the keys to the Mayor of  Rotterdam, Mr. Ahmed Aboutaleb, at Rotterdam City Hall.

A grand ceremony has been organized for the occasion, where Rotterdam will officially take over from Tel Aviv 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 16:10 CET via the following channels:

• NPO 1
• Eurovision Official Youtube Channel
• BVN
• BVN live stream

Pot distribution

The 35 semi-final competing countries have been divided and distributed into 5 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, Austria, Croatia, North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia, Switzerland
  
• Pot 2: Australia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden
  
• Pot 3: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine
  
• Pot 4: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Malta, Portugal, Romania, San Marino
  
• Pot 5: Belgium, Czech Republic, Ireland, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland
  
  

Semi-final Allocation Draw

A total 35 countries have been distributed into 5 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 one semi-final whilst  seventeen countries will compete in the other semi-final  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 The Netherlands voting in semi-final draw

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

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

Eurovision 2020

A total of 41 countries will compete at the 2020 Eurovision Song Contest in Rotterdam next May. 35 countries will compete in the semi-finals, whilst 26 countries will compete in the Grand Final.

The exact running order of the 35 countries competing in the 2 semi-finals on 12 and 14 May will be determined by the producers of the show by late March.

The Big 5 (Spain, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy) and the Netherlands (the host country) are automatically qualified to compete in the Grand Final on 16 May.

The 2020 Eurovision Song Contest is scheduled to be held on 12, 14 and 16  May at Rotterdam Ahoy in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.