Eurovision 2026 Gets Organised: Pots, Balls and the Annual Semi-Final Anxiety Ceremony

The tinsel is gone, the playlists are stale and reality has returned with a clipboard. Eurovision season is officially back in business. With 35 broadcasters confirmed for the 70th Eurovision Song Contest, it’s time for one of the most quietly dramatic rituals in the ESC calendar: the Semi-Final Allocation Draw.

Mark the date. Monday, 12 January at 19:00 CET, live from Vienna’s grand Wiener Rathaus. Yes, city hall. Because if you’re going to decide Europe’s musical fate by pulling balls out of pots, you might as well do it somewhere suitably imperial.

You’ll be able to watch the whole thing unfold live on the official Eurovision Song Contest YouTube channel, which means thousands of eurofans pretending this is “just background content” while secretly taking notes.

What’s Actually at Stake (Apart from Our Sanity)

The Draw will determine whether each participating broadcaster competes and votes in:

• Semi-Final 1: Tuesday 12 May, 21:00 CEST
• Semi-Final 2: Thursday 14 May, 21:00 CEST

But that’s not all. Eurovision never stops at one layer of tension. Each country will also find out whether their artist performs in the first half or second half of their assigned Semi-Final. Cue immediate fan debates about “good slots”, “death halves” and “Eurovision conspiracies”.

And Yes, the Big Ones Are Involved Too

The Semi-Final Draw also affects the automatic Grand Finalists. Austria, as host, joins the so-called Big 4 – France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom – in skipping the Semi-Finals as performers. Lucky them.

Not so fast, though. Their audiences still get to vote. During the Draw, it will be randomly decided which Semi-Final each of these five countries will be voting in, meaning they’ll still have a hand in shaping who makes it to Saturday night. Power, but make it discreet.

The Pots: Eurovision’s Favourite Game of “Let’s Be Fair”

To keep neighbourly voting to a minimum and suspense at a maximum, the 30 Semi-Finalists have been divided into five allocation pots. Geography, voting history and a healthy dose of optimism all play a role here.

Here’s how Vienna 2026 has shuffled the deck:

Pot 1
Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, Switzerland

Pot 2
Australia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Norway, Sweden

Pot 3
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Israel, Poland, Ukraine

Pot 4
Belgium, Czechia, Luxembourg, Moldova, Portugal, Romania

Pot 5
Cyprus, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, San Marino

The idea is simple. Spread familiar voting buddies across different Semi-Finals, stir gently, and hope chaos behaves itself this year.

The Calm Before the Storm

No songs. No staging. No outfits yet. Just envelopes, polite applause and a lot of restrained tension. But don’t be fooled. This is where narratives begin, fan theories are born and timelines quietly start arguing.

Eurovision 2026 hasn’t even pressed play yet, and we’re already drawing lines on maps.
Vienna is warming up. Europe is watching.
And somewhere, someone is already unhappy with their pot.

Source: EBU