🇮🇹 EBU reveals the pots for the 2022 semi-finals allocation draw

ITALY – The Semi-Final Allocation Draw will take place on Tuesday 25 January at 12:00 CET live from Palazzo Madama e Casaforte degli Acaja (Madama Palace), Turin, alongside a ceremony which sees the Host City Insignia pass from previous hosts Rotterdam to our Italian friends.

The Allocation Draw will determine whether countries participate in the First Semi-Final (Tuesday 10 May at 21:00 CEST) or the Second Semi-Final (Thursday 12 May at 21:00 CEST). Also randomly allocated is whether a country will perform in the first or second half of the Semi-Final they’ve drawn.

The draw will be hosted by television presenters Carolina di Domenico and Gabriele Corsi. In attendance will be the Mayor of Rotterdam Ahmed Aboutaleb and the Mayor of Turin Stefano Lo Russo.

Fans will be able to watch the draw on the official Eurovision YouTube channel or on Rai’s streaming service.

Italy, as the Host Country, along with the other 4 members of the so-called ‘Big 5’ participating countries (France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom) do not compete in the Semi-Finals but their domestic audiences do get to vote in one of them… so before the competing countries are allocated a place in a Semi-Final, it will be randomly determined which of the Semi-Finals the Big 5 will each be allowed to vote on.

The next part of the draw will determine in which Semi-Final and in which half of the respective Semi-Final the other 36 participating countries will perform in.

The 36 semi-finalists have been allocated across 6 pots based on historical voting patterns as calculated by Eurovision’s official televoting partner Digame.

Drawing countries from different pots helps to reduce the chance of so-called neighbourly voting and increases suspense in the Semi-Finals.

You can get a good idea of how it will all work by watching the 2020 Allocation Draw on the official Eurovision YouTube channel.

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