It’s time for the Eurovision semi-finals – here’s what you need to know

56 minutes agoShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleJennifer Clarke

The first Eurovision Song Contest semi-final takes place in Vienna on Tuesday, ahead of Saturday’s final.

Acts from 35 countries will take part in the 70th edition of the contest, which is being hosted in Austria after singer JJ won the 2025 competition with his ballad, Wasted Love.

A number of countries are boycotting the contest over Israel’s participation.

The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual televised competition organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

Songs must be original and no more than three minutes long. They cannot have been released or publicly performed before 1 September 2025.

Lead vocals must be live, with no lip-syncing or auto-tuning allowed and a maximum of six singers and dancers on stage.

Most Eurovision participants are European, but Australia takes part every year, after being invited to join Eurovision’s 60th anniversary celebrations in 2015. However, Australia cannot host the contest should it win.

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The grand final will be in the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna on Saturday. TV presenter Victoria Swarovski and actor Michael Ostrowski will host.

The first semi-final, on Tuesday, will feature Croatia, Finland, Georgia, Greece, Portugal, Moldova, Sweden, Belgium, Estonia, Israel, Lithuania, Montenegro, Poland, San Marino and Serbia.

This year’s entrant for San Marino, Senhit, has enlisted the help of Boy George, who will be lending vocals to her song Superstar.

The second semi-final, on Thursday, will see performances from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Romania, Switzerland, Albania, Australia, Cyprus, Denmark, Latvia, Malta, Norway and Ukraine.

The top 10 performers from each semi-final will join five pre-qualified acts in the final. These are from 2025 winner Austria and the UK, Italy, France and Germany, which provide extra financial support for Eurovision.

These countries still have to broadcast, perform and vote in one of the semi-finals. Germany and Italy will perform and vote in the first, while Austria, France and the UK will perform and vote in the second.

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The two Eurovision semi-finals and the grand final will be broadcast on BBC One and BBC iPlayer:

• The first Eurovision semi-final is on Tuesday 12 May from 20:00 BST
• The second Eurovision semi-final is on Thursday 14 May from 20:00 BST
• The Eurovision grand final is on Saturday 16 May from 20:00 BST

Rylan and Angela Scanlon will be providing commentary on both semi-finals, while Sara Cox will be doing so on BBC Radio 2 and BBC Sounds.

Graham Norton will be overseeing proceedings for Saturday’s grand final.

Audio description will be available on BBC iPlayer and BBC One. Live British Sign Language (BSL) interpretation will be available on the Red Button and iPlayer, while subtitles will be available on BBC One and signed coverage on iPlayer.

Look Mum No Computer is a solo artist, songwriter and YouTuber, who is also described as “an inventor of unique musical machines”.

He will perform the song Eins, Zwei, Drei.

He previously performed as Sam Battle, frontman of the indie rock band Zibra which appeared at Glastonbury 2015 as part of BBC Introducing.

“I find it completely bonkers to be jumping on this wonderful and wild journey,” he said.

“I have always been a massive Eurovision fan, and I love the magical joy it brings to millions of people every year, so getting to join that legacy and fly the flag for the UK is an absolute honour that I am taking very seriously.”

The singer-songwriter has his own museum in Ramsgate called This Museum is (Not) Obsolete. It includes a vintage Game Boy which he has programmed to play a 100-year-old church organ.

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Tensions have grown over Israel’s participation in Eurovision in recent years because of the war in Gaza.

The contest is now facing the biggest boycott in its 70-year history.

While 35 countries are participating in the 2026 contest, broadcasters from Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Iceland and Slovenia have withdrawn.

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During last year’s Eurovision final in Switzerland, two people attempted to storm the stage and throw paint over Israel’s contestant, Yuval Raphael. They were stopped by crew members and later arrested.

A number of countries also raised concerns after Raphael came top of the public vote in 2025 – finishing second overall after jury votes were taken into consideration.

Reports suggested that an Israeli government agency had paid for adverts and used state social media accounts to encourage people to vote for its entry.

Eurovision – which describes itself as non-political – has consistently resisted calls for Israel to be excluded. But it has changed the voting rules for the 2026 contest to limit the influence of governments on the results.

Israel said the decision to let it take part was a “victory” over critics who had tried to silence it and spread hatred.

In the final, every participating country is awarded two sets of scores: one from a jury of music experts and one from fans.

For the 2026 contest, fans have a maximum of 10 votes – down from 20 – which they can cast by phone, SMS or via the official Eurovision app. They can vote for as many different acts as they like, but cannot back their home country.

Each country awards 12 points to its most popular song while the second choice gets 10, and the rest are scored from eight to one.

Votes from viewers in non-participating countries are combined into a single bloc known as the “rest of the world” vote.

Jury votes will be added to the public vote to decide which countries qualify for the final. Previously, jury votes were only used in the grand final itself.

The contest organisers also said that better technical monitoring would help “detect and prevent fraudulent or coordinated voting activity, and strengthen monitoring of suspicious patterns”.

Scoring for the semi-finals works the same way as the grand final, though people in the UK will only be able to vote in the second semi-final on Thursday.

The five countries who automatically qualify for the final (the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Austria as last year’s winners) will participate in the semi-finals but the public will not be able to vote for them.

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