The qualifiers, announced during the live broadcast, were Greece’s Akylas with “Ferto”, Finland’s Linda Lampenius x Pete Parkkonen with “Liekinheitin”, Belgium’s ESSYLA with “Dancing on the Ice”, Sweden’s FELICIA with “My System”, Moldova’s Satoshi with “Viva, Moldova!”, Israel’s Noam Bettan with “Michelle”, Serbia’s LAVINA with “Kraj Mene”, Croatia’s LELEK with “Andromeda”, Lithuania’s Lion Ceccah with “Sólo Quiero Más”, and Poland’s ALICJA with “Pray”, News.Az reports, citing Eurovision.
After qualifying, the artists took part in the draw to determine which half of the Grand Final they would perform in. Greece, Belgium and Serbia were placed in the first half, while Sweden, Lithuania and Poland were drawn into the second half. Italy, Germany, Israel, Finland, Moldova and Croatia received Producer’s Choice.
Italy and Germany, who also performed during the semi-final as automatic finalists, selected their Grand Final halves backstage alongside the qualifiers.
Five countries failed to advance from the first semi-final. Portugal’s Bandidos do Cante with “Rosa”, Georgia’s Bzikebi with “On Replay”, Montenegro’s Tamara Živković with “Nova Zora”, Estonia’s Vanilla Ninja with “Too Epic To Be True”, and San Marino’s SENHIT with “Superstar” were eliminated from the competition.
The result of the semi-final was decided through a combination of jury and public voting, with each accounting for 50 percent of the final score. Viewers from the 15 competing countries, as well as Italy and Germany, participated in the televote.
The 10 successful acts will join the qualifiers from the second semi-final, along with France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and defending champion Austria in the Grand Final on May 16.
