Tomorrow marks the day when we’ll know which countries are competing in the first and second semi-finals in Liverpool, as the Allocation draw and the Host City Insignia handoff take place at 20:00 PM CET. We also saw a promotional image appear on the official Eurovision website which seems to hint that the slogan for 2023 could be “United By Music“.
Prior to the semi-final allocation drawing the EBU places all participating countries into six different pots, and each pot is decided using a complex system of regular voting patterns. Since the Big 5 countries and Ukraine are automatically qualified for the Grand Final, they will instead be drawing to decide which semi-final their country is voting in. One at a time the hosts AJ and Rylan will select a country from a pot, and then draw which semi-final and half they will perform in. They will then move to the next pot and continue until all slots are filled.
Over the years the pot allocations have changed only slightly, mainly due to the withdrawing of countries like Montenegro in 2021 and Bulgaria and North Macedonia in 2023, along with the expulsion of Russia from 2022 onward. This year fans will notice that a number of changes have been made to the pot allocations due to the low number of participating countries, causing the elimination of Pot 6 all together. Because of this, many of the pots resemble their 2021 counterparts like Pot 2 listing Estonia with the Nordic countries and Australia and Pot 1 including both Austria and Switzerland once again.
New changes emerging will see both Latvia and Lithuania move to Pot 3, Ireland moving from Pot 6 to Pot 4 which is a new pot combination for the country, and the remainder of 2022’s Pot 6 being combined into the new Pot 5 – which is a near match to the 2021 Pot 5 besides Netherlands, Moldova and Romania. The only Pot practically untouched is Pot 4, which replaced Ireland for the missing Bulgaria.
Once tomorrow’s draw is complete, the show producers will create a final running order using the first half/second half draws and announce it the weeks prior to rehearsal week.
Do #YOU have predicitions for the semi-final allocation draw? Let us know on social media @ESCUnited, on our discord, or on our forum page!
Source: EBU
