Austria is hosting Eurovision\u2019s 70th year<\/a>, with 35 countries taking part overall and only 25 places available in Saturday\u2019s final. Semi-Final 1 saw 15 countries perform for the first 10 qualifying slots, with Italy and Germany also appearing as automatic qualifiers.<\/p>\n The 10 qualifying countries from Semi-Final 1 were:<\/p>\n Greece<\/p>\n Finland<\/p>\n Belgium<\/p>\n Sweden <\/p>\n Maldova<\/p>\n Israel<\/p>\n Serbia<\/p>\n Croatia<\/p>\n Lithuania <\/p>\n Poland<\/p>\n UK viewers were unable to vote in the first semi-final.<\/p>\n Semi-Final 1 qualifiers in Vienna<\/p>\n The 10 qualifiers were revealed during the live show, but the order they were announced does not reflect the final ranking. The results were announced in a random order and are not indicative of where each country placed in the semi-final.<\/p>\n The opening act was titled \u201870 Years of Love\u2019, featuring a 70-member choir.<\/p>\n When the UK can vote and watch<\/p>\n The second semi-final airs on Thursday 14 May. France and the United Kingdom will perform and vote in that show, and host nation Austria will also perform.<\/p>\n Eurovision is organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and is one of the world\u2019s biggest live televised music events. The contest has a long-running association with LGBTQ+ audiences and has helped cement queer pop icons and camp performance traditions in mainstream TV. With extra attention this year amid context about Eurovision Song Contest 2026<\/a> and Spain\u2019s decision not to broadcast the 2026 contest due to Israel\u2019s participation<\/a>, the line-up is likely to be closely watched ahead of Saturday night.<\/p>\n The Eurovision Grand Final airs on Saturday 16 May at 8pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Image: Christian Bruna\/Getty Images Eurovision 2026\u2019s first semi-final in Vienna has produced its 10 Grand Final qualifiers, including…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20858],"tags":[20859,20860,21051,145,25913,1491,381],"class_list":{"0":"post-40244","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eurovision","8":"tag-eurovision","9":"tag-eurovision-song-contest-2026","10":"tag-grand-final","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-public-vote","13":"tag-sweden","14":"tag-uk"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Austria](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/eurovision-2026-semi-final-qualifiers-sweden-israel.jpg\")
Getty<\/p>\n