Good evening Europe, good morning Australia! The moment millions of Eurofans have been waiting for has finally arrived. Tonight live from Malmö Arena in Sweden the 68th edition of the longest running televised music competition will begin. The city of Southern Sweden hosts the Eurovision Song Contest for the second time in a bit more than a decade.

After a long and well debated season the time has arrived to turn on the lights on the magnificent stage of the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö, Sweden. Tonight’s semi final will open the contest that will see the participation of 37 countries from Europe and Australia. The Scandinavian country has the honour of hosting the competition for the third time in 11 years following the iconic victory of Loreen in Liverpool in May 2023 with her Tattoo. It is the third time that the Eurovision circus halts in Malmö.

The show

The 68th Eurovision Song Contest will see the participation of 37 countries. The first fifteen will compete tonight, and as usual the ten best placed countries at the end of the evening will advance to the Grand Final scheduled on Saturday 11 May 2024. Tonight’s hosts are Eurovision-superstar and 2013 host Petra Mede and Malin Åkerman. The slogan of this year’s edition is again United by music, as the European Broadcasting Union announced last November that this slogan will become permanent.

The opening of this year’s contest will be dedicated to former Eurovision hits with Eleni Foureira (Fuego, Cyprus 2018), Eric Saade (Popular, Sweden 2011) and Chanel (SloMo, Spain 2022). The interval act will feature a medley of songs of Benjamin Ingrosso, who represented Sweden in 2018, and a performance of two-time Eurovision winner Johnny Logan (Ireland, 1980 and 1987).

Tonight’s contestant will be introduced by the traditional postcard of the duration of 40 seconds. This year SVT is introducing a new concept to reduce their impact on the environment. The postcards have been sent from each participating country.

Tonight’s contestants

The draw for both semi-finals took place on 30 January at the Malmö Town Hall. The exact running order was revealed on 26 March on the website of the Eurovision Song Contest:

1. Cyprus – Silia Kapsis – Liar
2. Serbia – Teya Dora – Ramonda
3. Lithuania – Silvester Belt – Luktelk
4. Ireland – Bambie Thug – Doomsday Blue
5. Ukraine – Alyona Alyona and Jerry Heil – Teresa & Maria
6. Poland – Luna – The tower
7. Croatia – Baby Lasagna – Rim tim dagi dim
8. Iceland – Hera Björk – Scared of heights
9. Slovenia – Raiven – Veronika
10. Finland – Windows95man – No rules!
11. Moldova – Natalia Barbu – In the middle
12. Azerbaijan – Fahree feat. Ikin Dovlatov – Özünlə apar
13. Australia – Electric Fields – One milkali (one blood)
14. Portugal – Iolanda – Grito
15. Luxembourg – Tali – Fighter

Notable comebacks

This semi final will offer a couple of notable comebacks in the contest. First and foremost: Luxembourg is back at Eurovision! The Grand Duchy last participated in our beloved contest in 1993 and they announced their historical comeback during last year’s final in Liverpool. 23 year-old singer and songwriter Tali won the Luxembourgish national selection with the song Fighter and will be the first representative of her home country to set foot on the Eurovision Stage in 31 long years.

Tonight will however witness the Eurovision comeback of two former entrants. Natalia Barbu already represented Moldova in 2007 with the entry Fight, when she qualified for the final and finished 10th overall with 109 points. Another return is the one of Hera Björk. The Eurovision Queen from Iceland won the Icelandic national selection last March and will represent her home country for the second time after her iconic Je ne sais quoi which led her to the 19th position of the Grand Final of Eurovision 2010 in Oslo.

The vote

Once again the semi-finals will be decided by the televote only, following last year’s decision from the EBU. Viewers from tonight’s participating countries will have all the power to decide of the outcome. In addition, viewers from the United Kingdom, Germany and Sweden and the Rest of the World will also be able to cast their vote in this first semi-final.

The EBU will however introduce yet another change to the voting rules. Instead of waiting until the end of the last performance, viewers will be able to cast their votes from the very beginning of the show already. Furthermore, voters from the rest of the world will see their window open 24 hours before the show. Finally, the three pre-qualified and voting countries will perform during tonight’s semi final, in between the competing acts. The United Kingdom will perform between the acts 4 and 5, Germany will sing between the acts 8 and 9, while Sweden will be on stage between the acts 11 and 12.

The ten countries with the most televote points will advance to the Grand Final, whereas the remaining five will unfortunately abandon this year’s competition. The ten lucky entrants will be announced at the end of the show in random order. Stay tuned on ESCToday.com for the results!

In order to vote, verify the information provided by your national broadcaster if you reside in a participating country or are eligible to vote under the Rest of the world. You may also download the official Eurovision app. Remember, you cannot vote for your own country.

How to watch

The first semi-final of Eurovision 2024 will air live tonight at 21:00 CEST.

You can follow the show through the national broadcasters of the participating nations, with local commentary, or via the live stream on eurovision.tv and the official Eurovision YouTube channel. The list of participating national broadcasters is available here.

Who is your favourite tonight?
Let us know with a comment below!