Ladies and gentlemen! Our hearts beat from Lisbon, where the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 is currently taking place. Following countless days and hours of preparations, the first live show from the Altice Arena is already over, and its results are (yaaas) in!

What a show!

Hosting the contest for the first time ever, Portugal and its national broadcaster RTP have kept its promises and presented quite an impressive 2-hour-long first semi-final, with a total of 19 entries fighting for the 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 2018 Eurovision winner.

While the suspense was reaching at its peak, the presenters Filomena Cautela, Sílvia Alberto, Daniela Ruah and Catarina Furtado announced the 10 lucky entries, which will keep chasing their dream in the Eurovision battle.

Who’s straight to the final?

A total of 22 countries had voting rights in the first semi-final, including the 19 competing ones, as well as 3 of the 6 automatic finalists, namely Spain, the United Kingdom and the host country of Portugal.

As of their announcement order, which is completely random, the 10 winners of tonight’s battle are:

• Austria
• Estonia
• Cyprus
• Lithuania
• Israel
• Czech Republic
• Bulgaria
• Albania
• Finland
• Ireland

The eventual result emerged by both the public vote and the 22 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 breakdown of the two semi-final events is not going to be unveiled before the Grand Final’s conclusion on Saturday.

The qualifiers’ press conference

But the night will not stop here! Following the results announcement, a joint press conference with all 10 tonight’s qualifiers is going to take place in a few minutes. Besides the discussion with the respective delegations, we will also find out in which half of the Grand Final each participant will be performing. So, stay tuned for the results!

The actual Grand Final running order will be determined and publicly announced after the end of both semi-finals on Thursday evening, when we’ll finally know all the 26 contenders of the 2018 Eurovision trophy!

Stay tuned on ESCToday for all the latest developments
upon the ongoing Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon!