The votes for the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest are ready to be counted as we start with the votes from the jury members from each of the competing semi-final 1 countries. Twenty-one juries will vote in tonight’s show, but the results will only be known in the days to come.

The search for the first semi-final qualifiers begins this evening in which a total of 18 nations will be competing for a place in Saturday’s live show.

Semi-final 1 participants

Jury show: The voting begins

As with previous years, the votes in this year’s competition will be made up of a 50% televote and 50% jury, each of which are determined over the course of 2 nights.

The night before every live Eurovision show, a jury show takes place at the arena which sees a full dress rehearsal run at the venue before the official live show airs the following day.

During the jury show, the jury members from the competing countries view each of the dress rehearsal performances and determine their full top of the evening. Every country’s jury consists of 5 members, whose votes are then combined together and thus being presented as the official jury vote of that nation, making up 50% of the final vote.

Note that the jury show is not officially broadcast live.

The remaining 50% of the vote is decided by the public televote during the official live broadcast, with competing countries from across the globe being given around 15 minutes to vote for their favourite entries of the evening.

These votes are then added together with the jury which determines the 10 qualifiers from the first semi-final.

Eurovision 2017 schedule

• 08/05: Semi-final 1 (Jury show)
• 09/05: Semi-final 1 (Live broadcast)
• 10/05: Semi-final 2 (Jury show)
• 11/05: Semi-final 2 (Live broadcast)
• 12/05: Grand final (Jury show)
• 13/05: Grand final (Live broadcast)