A special draw was held today at Stockholm’s City Hall in order to distribute a total of 37 countries into one of the two 2016 Eurovision Song Contest semi-finals, scheduled to be held on 10 and 12 May in Vienna.

During the draw it was also determined in which half of the semi-final the alloted countries are to perform. A total 0f 43 countries will participate at the forthcoming Eurovision Song Contest. 37 countries will compete in the semi-finals, whilst the BIG 5 and the host country Sweden are automatically qualified to compete in the grand final.

Semifinal 1		Semifinal 2
1st half	2nd half	1st half	2nd half
Croatia	Azerbaijan	Latvia	Albania
Finland	Cyprus	Belarus	Bulgaria
Moldova	Malta	Ireland	Denmark
Armenia	Bosnia & Herzegovina	Switzerland	Georgia
Greece	Estonia	FYR Macedonia	Romania
Hungary	Czech Republic	Australia	Slovenia
Russia	Montenegro	Lithuania	Norway
The Netherlands	Iceland	Poland	Ukraine
San Marino	Austria	Israel	Belgium
		Serbia

A total of 37 countries will compete in the 2 semi-finals which are scheduled to be held on 19 and 21 May. A total of 18 countries will compete in Semi-final 1 on 10 May,whilst 19 countries will compete in Semi-final 2 on 12 May.

The BIG 5 (Spain, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy) and Sweden (the host country) are automatically qualified to compete in the grand final on 14 May and were drawn to vote during the following semifinals

The 2015 Eurovision Song Contest will will be held on 10, 12 and 14 May at the Globen Arena in Stockholm.

Stay tuned to ESCToday.com for the latest information on Sweden and the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest.