The 1st semifinal of Eurovision 2024 is in the books, and what a show it was on Tuesday night.
For one thing, Petra Mede was amazing, and a queen, and we all love her. That has nothing to do with the performances, but everything to do with what turned out to be a fantastic and reasonably strong first semifinal.
Ten countries made it through to Saturday’s grand final (thirteen if you count the three automatic qualifiers who performed as well), and there was at least one big surprise in the lot.
Who Made It Out of the 1st Semifinal?
In alphabetical order, the ten qualifiers were: Croatia, Cyprus, Finland, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, and Ukraine.
Ireland’s qualification was their first since 2018, when Ryan O’Shaughnessy sang “Together.” It was only the second time post-2013 that Ireland has made it to the grand final, which is quite something considering that at one point, Ireland basically couldn’t lose Eurovision if they tried.
This was the first semifinal in which Luxembourg has ever appeared, seeing as the semifinal did not exist until 2004, and Luxembourg had not performed since 1993. They are now 1-for-1.
Croatia has now qualified in back-to-back years, after only making it through twice in the 2010s. Slovenia has also made it back-to-back years getting through the Eurovision semifinal. Meanwhile, Cyprus has continued its trend of making the grand final more often than not, just missing once since 2015.
Finland has qualified four years in a row, coming off of a second-place finish in 2023. Lithuania, like Finland, is on a good run of making the final four years in a row, with their last failed effort being in 2019. Portugal has also gone through four years in a row.
Serbia is on an even longer run, qualifying six contests in a row; the last time they did not was in 2017. Yet, the most impressive streak belongs to Ukraine, who have never missed a grand final since semifinals were introduced in 2004.
Who Did Not Escape the 1st Semifinal, Eurovision 2024?
The non-qualifiers were Australia, Azerbaijan, Iceland, Moldova, and Poland.
This was just the second time Australia has ever missed the grand final since joining the contest in 2015.
Iceland has not made the grand final in consecutive years, whereas Moldova just had a streak of three in a row broken this year.
Poland’s luck has not been amazing, as they made it the previous two years, but before that, you have to go back to 2017 for the last time they made it.
Finally, Azerbaijan has non-qualified in consecutive years for the first time ever. Since joining Eurovision in 2008, they have only missed the final three times, two of those being in 2023 and 2024.
