This is it! After a week of rehearsals, Eurovision is here with Semi-Final 1! Yesterday was the jury show for Semi-Final 1, which comprises 50% of the votes. Tonight, the live show occurs and 21 countries will vote for 10 qualifiers from the 18 semi-finalists.
The ESC United team here in Kyiv has provided their individual predictions ranked from 1 to 18. Some of us were happy with our initial predictions while others made slight tweaks. We then compiled our predictions to make one team prediction. DISCLAIMER: These are our predictions!!! This does not reflect our personal taste or represents the team of ESC United.
We then asked you, our readers, to provide your votes for your favorites in our poll. In true Eurovision style, we took your poll votes, ranked them from 1 to 18, and combined them with our team prediction to create a final overall prediction (50% from our team prediction, 50% from your poll votes). To avoid another Spain National Final debacle, we have put tie-breakers in the hands of you, the readers.
ESC UNITED TEAM PREDICTIONS
Although Sweden was only the top pick by two members, overall in the team prediction, it is our first place. This is especially interesting given that it is the first country to perform in the Semi-Final. Three of the team put Finland in first, whereas two of us put Portugal in the lead.
In the end, we believe that early frontrunner Belgium will sneak barely into the final, although half of us believe individually that she w. Once the frontrunner, our team believes there has been a fall from grace. We have it squeaking into the finals, although four of us have Belgium not qualifying.
ESC UNITED READER PREDICTIONS
Our readers agreed with us that Sweden and Azerbaijan were their two favorites. However, whereas we believed that Latvia will qualify, they believed that Moldova will qualify.
COMBINED RESULTS
This is where things get interesting. Given our methodology, although the ESC United team and readers think that Poland will qualify (Team: 9; Readers: 10), combined, Poland drops to 11th. This is because our discrepancies related to Moldova (Team: 11; Readers: 8). With the three-way tie with Belgium (Team: 10; Readers: 9), tie-break goes in favor of Moldova and Belgium, who were ranked higher by the readers.
UNTIL TONIGHT!
So while we have some agreement, there is also some disagreement. But as a combined force, the ESC United Team and Readers have done fairly well in predictions. I do remember one instance in which the team had 8/10 predictions correct; the readers had 8/10 predictions as well; but combined, we had 9/10 predictions correct.
What do you think? Let us know on the forums!
