{"id":40320,"date":"2026-05-13T05:25:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T05:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/40320\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T05:25:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T05:25:08","slug":"greeces-akylas-advances-to-the-eurovision-final-with-ferto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/40320\/","title":{"rendered":"Greece&#8217;s Akylas Advances to the Eurovision Final with &#8220;Ferto&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/akylas-ferto-eurovision-semis-credit-epa-via-amna-jpg.jpg\" alt=\"Akylas Eurovision\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>Akylas of <a href=\"https:\/\/greekreporter.com\/greece\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Greece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Greece<\/a> performs during the first semi-final of the 70th Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) in Vienna, Austria, 12 May 2026. Credit: EPA, HANNIBAL HANSCHKE via AMNA<\/p>\n<p>Akylas, Greece\u2019s representative to the Eurovision Song Contest, secured one of the ten spots from the first semi-final for Saturday\u2019s Grand Final.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/greekreporter.com\/2026\/03\/11\/greece-unveils-music-video-akylas-eurovision-entry-ferto\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Performing \u201cFerto\u201d<\/a> in Vienna on Tuesday, the 27-year-old artist delivered a high-energy performance and proved that the Greek delegation is not in Austria for the experience.<\/p>\n<p>This year\u2019s entry follows a classic, albeit maximalist, <a href=\"https:\/\/greekreporter.com\/2026\/02\/16\/akylas-represent-greece-eurovision-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Eurovision recipe<\/a>. It features an energetic, charismatic performer and a highly catchy track. The staging, designed by Fokas Evangelinos, is fast-paced and ambitious, featuring a poignant homage to Helena Paparizou\u2019s winning 2005 performance, \u201cMy Number One.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The countries that advanced to the Eurovision final<\/p>\n<p>Finland also secured a spot in the final. Their entry, \u201cLiekinheitin,\u201d remains the bookmakers\u2019 favorite to win the entire contest. Along with Greece and Finland, the following eight countries also advanced:<\/p>\n<p>Belgium, Sweden, Moldova, Israel, Serbia, Croatia, Lithuania, and Poland.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurovision.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Saturday\u2019s Grand Final<\/a>, Akylas will face the \u201cBig 4\u201d (Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, and France) and the host nation, Austria. They will be joined by the ten qualifiers from Thursday\u2019s second Semi-Final, where Antigoni will compete for Cyprus with the song \u201cJalla.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Vicky Leandros, a highlight if the opening night<\/p>\n<p>The 70th Eurovision Song Contest opened with a moving introductory video and impressive stage production by the Austrian hosts. A standout moment was the appearance of <a href=\"https:\/\/greekreporter.com\/2025\/06\/20\/greek-singer-global-superstar-vicky-leandros\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Vicky Leandros<\/a>, who performed \u201cL\u2019amour est bleu\u201d\u2014the song she famously performed in Vienna for Luxembourg back in 1967.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Akylas of Greece performs during the first semi-final of the 70th Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) in Vienna, Austria,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20858],"tags":[21079,1452,20859,20860,24781,7056,26001],"class_list":{"0":"post-40320","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eurovision","8":"tag-akylas","9":"tag-austria","10":"tag-eurovision","11":"tag-eurovision-song-contest-2026","12":"tag-ferto","13":"tag-greek-news","14":"tag-semifinal"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40320","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=40320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}