Iceland sings twelfth!

The running order for the songs taking part in the semi-finals of the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest has just been revealed. Iceland will be singing twelfth in the second semi-final on Thursday 21 May.

Battling for qualification

The 33 countries which need to qualify to the grand final were allocated to one of two semi-finals in a draw organised by Austrian television on 26 January. The final running order for each semi-final was determined by the producers of the show and announced today on eurovision.tv.

Iceland singing twelfth

Iceland will be performing twelfth out of the seventeen entries battling it out in the second semi-final on Thursday 21 May. The top ten songs from each semi-final will be joining the automatic qualifiers (Australia, Austria, France, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom) in the grand final on Saturday 23 May, making a total of 26 competing countries.

Good draw?

The current two-semi-final system has been used in the Eurovision Song Contest since 2008, i.e. for seven years. Of these fourteen semi-finals, the country singing in twelfth position has qualified nine times. Furthermore, the last time Iceland sang in twelfth position in a semi-final, the country went on to secure its joint best result of all time (2009, ‘Is it true?’, Jóhanna Guðrún Jónsdóttir, 2nd place). An advertisement break is scheduled for immediately after the Icelandic entry - opinion is divided as to whether that is an advantage or a disadvantage.

The running order for the two semi-finals is as follows:

Semi-Final 1 (Tuesday 19 May)

1. Moldova
2. Armenia
3. Belgium
4. The Netherlands
5. Finland
6. Greece
7. Estonia
8. FYR Macedonia
9. Serbia
10. Hungary
11. Belarus
12. Russia
13. Denmark
14. Albania
15. Romania
16. Georgia

Semi-Final 2 (Thursday 21 May)

1. Lithuania
2. Ireland
3. San Marino
4. Montenegro
5. Malta
6. Norway
7. Portugal
8. Czech Republic
9. Israel
10. Latvia
11. Azerbaijan
12. Iceland
13. Sweden
14. Switzerland
15. Cyprus
16. Slovenia
17. Poland