How do you rank this semi-final

[FilipFromSweden]

So, how do you rank this semi-final? Do you like it, dislike it?

Personally, I think it was a weak semi-final. Only Georgia, Estonia, Greece, Albania, Romania, Serbia and Belgium impressed me. Moldova was an embarassing mess, Armenia aswell. Trijtnje made a what should've been a feel good performance something depressing. The hosts looked scared and uncomfortable (it really made me think about how comfortable and warm Petra seemed to be when she was the host) and the script and the humor .. don't get me started.

But Conchita was good

 

[DaFlo]

except for the performances the show was ..... really meh imo :?

 

[angry]

Sometimes bad camera work.
I did not like the hosts, so I'm not complaining that they had to catch a train.
Conchita was lovely!

 

[FilipFromSweden]

And what was that in the end? They said like 10 qualifiers in 60 seconds

 

[dcs34]

Overall I think the entries were quite high - there were no real 'joke' entries bar one...

The Stage was OK. Seemed like the camera struggled to get close to the performers, and sometimes it seemed sloppy. I wish they could replace the hosts with Conchita. She seems to have a much better grasp of English (i.e. how to make a joke) and empathy with the contestants.

 

[lavieenrose]

I disagree with a lot of the complaints people have about the first semi. The hosts actually made me laugh a couple times (only the third in history after Petra and Anke), everybody except Bojana, Genealogy, and possibly Elhaida gave their best performance ever on one of the two nights, and I was never super fond of the longer qualification segment (with the exception of San Marino last year, but there's no way that any qualification this year could be that awesome), and I do agree with FilipFromSweden that Conchita did a nice job in the green room and in the opening number.

 

[GermanBango]

For me the arena is way to small but ok... There were some technical problems but things like that happen ... for my taste way too much Conchita but still I can live with that... BUT there is one thing I absolutely couldn't stand and that was this amateurish use of the fake-applause. It took away all the intimacy and made the whole show kind of soul- and passion-less. For me it felt more like the ORF sees this as a free commercial for their country rather than a serious competition. Too much focus on Austria and too less on the ESC imho

 

[Salmon]

The sound seemed a bit... uncanny to me. I'm no professional, but there was something wrong about it the whole time... idk, I couldn't really enjoy the music.

Regardless of the sound problems, the boring hosts, the honestly weird interval video (animals' view of Vienna? How original!) and an outright boring selection of songs, the thing which infuriated me were the country hashtags in the corners. Why on earth must an honourable TV show such as Eurovision be full of this “pls tweet and share” crap? Honestly, hashtags outside of the Internet itself are imho the biggest cancer of the social media era.

Or I'm uselessly ranting again.

Full agreement with [MENTION=10896]GermanBango[/MENTION] about fake applause. It honestly distracted all my attention away from entries such as the Moldovan one (okay, not that it's worth listening to but anyway ) and is just a pathetic try to “engage” viewers, or idk what they were thinking...

[/rant]

 

[Mimoliin]

For me the arena is way to small but ok... There were some technical problems but things like that happen ... for my taste way too much Conchita but still I can live with that... BUT there is one thing I absolutely couldn't stand and that was this amateurish use of the fake-applause. It took away all the intimacy and made the whole show kind of soul- and passion-less. For me it felt more like the ORF sees this as a free commercial for their country rather than a serious competition. Too much focus on Austria and too less on the ESC imho

I agree with most of this, although I wouldn't have minded even more Conchita. She seemed way more comfortable and professional than the actual hosts.

Words that come to my mind about the show as a whole is also lack of passion. It didn't connect with me on a deeper level. I, as a viewer, didn't feel invited; didn't feel like a part of it all. It was their party and I was but a simple, unimportant part of the bigger audience.

Meh, not sure how else to explain it.

 

[DutchESC]

I'm sorry to say this, but so far I'm not impressed, I really expected more from a country like Austria. The beginning of the show I found really messy.
The hosts are a bit awkward and not (convincingly) funny, probably because of the nerves. The camera work was actually blurry sometimes. And last but not least; I don't like the stage, it's too small. I prefer a catwalk that leads to another smaller stage, like in 2011.

 

[EDC0708]

The biggest concern to me is that I can't remember the tune of any of the 10 qualifiers this morning!
Really liked the stage and lighting, but found the opening quite dull with everyone walking across the stage, and the interview with Guy Sebastian was far too long, especially since in the UK we had just had an interview with him during the break with very similar content. The results were far too fast, and I didn't agree with most of the qualifiers, the only songs I really liked were Moldova and Finland, could particularly relate to the Finnish group as I have some mild learning difficulties, and thought they were great, although the song really needed another minute.
The postcards were a bit dull compared to some in previous years.
Was there an interval act this year, if there was I don't think the UK showed it.

 

[Kairit]

Yeah, the whole show was a bit 'meh'. But I feel like that's sort of the case every year. The hosts seem awkward the first time etc. and everything doesn't quite click, but then everyone loves it in the final. I don't know. But yeah, I didn't really enjoy it all. It went by very quickly and didn't feel very "warm" or memorable at all, there was a big sort of disconnect for sure and it felt like a lot smaller event than Eurovision, everything felt rushed. Even if it's going to be better and I'll enjoy it a lot more in the final, it probably won't beat the last few years or even come really close to them, which is a shame. But eh.. We'll see. Still two more shows left.

 

[Terence]

For the record:

Past results, and time taken to announce the last finalist:

2015 semifinal 1: 2:33

2014 semifinal 1: 4:36
2014 semifinal 2: 4:26

2013 semifinal 1: 5:17
2013 semifinal 2: 5:20

2012 semifinal 1: 7:15 (including the golden ticket thing)
2012 semifinal 2: 7:42 (including the golden ticket thing)

At this rate, next year they will announce them all at one go!

 

[EscGeek]

Denmark did it just right. 4-5 minutes is perfect

the hosts were terrible...but i don't really care much about it

 

[Joyride]

To be honest, it hasn't been the best Eurovision SO FAR (still two shows to come!). I found the postcards rather boring and I didn't like the screen behind the stage, it was all too much. It's nice to have innovative technology, but a whole landscape in the background is not in my sense of "performance". I liked the three moderators and especially Conchita. I didn't like the animal videos in the break either. Altogether they're leaving room for improvement so I'm really looking forward to the final.

 

[Crystalstar17]

The animal videos in the break time... god why.. I was just facepalming

 

[DaFlo]

the animal videos only good thing about them was to try and recognize the Eurovision songs in it
2014 2012 2014 2014 2014

but I forgot some already I think

 

[Leydan]

I thought it happened really quick. It was far too quick for my liking.

 

[DutchESC]

The animal videos in the break time... god why.. I was just facepalming

I actually found that the highlight of the evening.

 

[CaraMia]

IMO, the performances were the only thing that saved this semi-final from being a terrible show (and I'm not even saying this because I found all the performances amazing; I'm saying this because I saw the show for the performances and in that sense the service is done). The stage was good (I thought it would look smaller, but it looked nice to me after all), but sometimes it reminded me of a Big Brother live show instead of Eurovision (like when the host was interviewing Guy Sebastian). I was also very displeased by the camera work in some performances (for example, in Russia they were showing the stage from the audience level and all you could see were flags).
About the hosts: their lack of enthusiasm and suspense when revealing the qualifiers was something that I had never seen since I follow ESC (2006). I think they lost control of the time and then they just had to finish the show, but everything happened too fast and looked meaningless.

In short: this is certainly one of the worst semi-finals ever in terms of organisation that I can remember. I hope the 2nd semi-final and the final will be better.