Today the 66th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest kicks off with Semi-final 1, broadcast live from Turin, Italy. The first of the three big nights of the 2022 contest week has finally arrived! We fly to Turin in Italy after Måneskin’s triumph last year with the song “Zitti E Buoni”.
A year After Måneskin’s win
A year after Måneskin’s mesmerizing win in the Dutch city of Rotterdam, and after a fabulous Eurovision pre-party season, the day has finally arrived that the European continent, and of course Australia, reunite for the world’s biggest music festival, the Eurovision Song Contest. As of today, three wonderful shows are presented to you on three separate evenings, 2 Semi-finals and the Grand Final. During these nights, which are on the 10th, 12th, and the 14th of May 2022, representatives of no less than 40 countries will present their competing songs with fabulous staging and creative magic as can only be seen during the Eurovision Song Contest.
This year’s venue
This year’s venue is the PalaOlimpico in the beautiful Italian city of Turin. The venue is situated in Santa Rita, one of Turin’s quarters. The PalaOlimpico was build to host the hockey competition of the 2066 Olympic Winter Games, and has a capacity of 14,000 spectators; this venue is even considered to be the best sports venue there is in Italy, so it is most definitely Eurovision Song Contest ready.
The sound of beauty
The slogan of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest is “The Sound of Beauty”, and with that slogan in mind you can watch the first Semi-final tonight at 21:00 CET. Below you can find a list of the 17 countries that will perform tonight during the first Semi-final of the 66th Eurovision Song Contest, held in Turin, Italy. The competing 17 countries will battle it out for 1 of the 10 Grand Final spots, which means that already 7 countries can pack their bags after tonight’s live show.
The competing countries in Semi-final:
| POSITION AND COUNTRY | REPRESENTATIVE | SONG |
|---|---|---|
 01 ALBANIA | Ronela Hajati | “Sekret |
 02 LATVIA | Citi Zēni | “Eat Your Salad |
 03 LITHUANIA | Monika Liu | “ Sentimentai“ |
 04 SWITZERLAND | Marius Bear | “Boys Do Cry |
 05 SLOVENIA | LPS | “Disko |
 06 UKRAINE | Kalush Orchestra | “Stefania“(Stefania) |
 07 BULGARIA | Intelligent Music Project | “Intention |
 08 NETHERLANDS | S10 | “De Diepte |
 09 MOLDOVA | Zdob şi Zdub & Advahov Brothers | “Trenulețul |
 10 PORTUGAL | MARO | “Saudade, Saudade“(Saudade, Saudade) |
 11 CROATIA | Mia Dimšić | “Guilty Pleasure |
 12 DENMARK | REDDI | “The Show |
 13 AUSTRIA | LUM!X feat. Pia Maria | “Halo |
 14 ICELAND | Systur | “Með Hækkandi Sól“ |
 15 GREECE | Amanda Georgiadi Tenfjord | “Die Together |
 16 NORWAY | Subwoolfer | “Give That Wolf A Banana |
 17 ARMENIA | Rosa Linn | “Snap“ |
The voting system
The 17 countries which compete are also able to vote tonight, except not for their own country. Next to the votes of the competing countries, also 2 countries of the Big 5 (France, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and Spain), will give their votes; in Semi-final 1 these countries are France and Italy. These 2 Big 5 countries cannot vote in the second Semi-final.
Note: On the nights before the evening of the live show, during the second dress rehearsal of the Semi-finals as well as the Grand Final, the national professional juries of the competing countries give their votes; these votes count for 50% of the grand total. The public votes, which are granted during the live shows make up for the other 50%.
The hosts
The Italian hosts of the Semi-finals, as well as the Grand Final are Mika, Laura Pausini, and Alessandro Cattelan.
Laura Pausini
Laura Pausini is one of Italy’s most-famous singers, and she also has a very international career. Laura Pausini was born in Solarolo in Ravenna, Italy on May 16th 1974. Laura is also referred to as “the queen of Italian pop music”. Laura started singing when she was just 8 years old together with her father Fabrizio, and in 1993 she rose to worldwide fame when she was the winner of the debutants segment of the famous San Remo Festival, the festival on which the Eurovision Song Contest is based. Laura Pausini already has a Golden Globe under her belt in the “Best Original Song” category, and she was also nominated for an Oscar in the same category. This win and nomination were for the song “Io sì” in the Netflix movie, “The Life Ahead”.
Alessandro Cattelan
Alessandro Cattelan was born on May 11th 1980 in Tortona, Italy. Alessandro is one of Italy’s most well-known radio and TV presenters; one of his presenter positions was at MTV Italia. Next to this, Alessandro was the presenter of the Italian version of the famous talent show “X-Factor” from 2011 until 2020. In 2021 Alessandro joined the National Italian Broadcaster, RAI. Alessandro was also a candidate to host the San Remo Festival in 2020.
Mika
Mika, real name “Michael Holbrook Penniman Jr.”, was born on August 18th 1983 in Beirut, Lebanon. Mika rose to fame when his first album came out in 2007; the album sold a staggering 5.6 million copies, and he even won a Brit Award for it. World famous songs of Mika are: Grace Kelly, Relax (Take It Easy), and “We Are Golden”. Mika has been a judge on the X-Factor Italia from 2013 until 2015, where he also got to meet his Eurovision host colleague Alessandro Cattelan. Miks returned to the X-Factor Italia in 2020 and 2021. Mika speaks 7 languages fluently, among them English, French, and Italian.
THE SHOW, GUESTS AND INTERVAL ACTS
This year’s Eurovision Song contest is a great show with guests and interval acts. Below you can find everything you can expect in the first Semi-final.
The introduction of LEO
The first semi-final of Eurovision 2022 starts with a video that tells the story of an Italian inventor who builds small flying objects; we see that the inventor creates the drone LEO, who was in charge of flying around Italy to record the most picturesque Italian landscapes for the Eurovision postcards that we will see introducing each performance. Leo will also project an image of each artist onto these wonderful places. From the inventor’s workplace, Leo will travel to the PalaOlimpico and the show begins with a laser performance, lights and songs.
The dance of beauty
The first interval act has the name of “The Dance of Beauty”, featuring music producer Dardust (one of the composers of Italy’s 2019’s entry “Soldi”), flautist Sylvia Catasta, DJ Benny Benassi and the British band Sophie and the Giants.
Raffaela Carrà
Laura Pausini will pay tribute to the great and unforgettable Raffaela Carrà with a fragment of the Spanish version of her song “Fiesta”.
Diodato
Singer Diodato, the winner of the Sanremo Festival 2020 and Italy’s representative at the cancelled Eurovision 2020, had the chance to sing his song in an empty arena during the alternative Eurovision 2020 program “Europe Shine a Light”, but he never did in a huge arena. His song became one of hope during the pandemic, and now he gets the chance to sing his song “Fai Rumore” in an Eurovision stage with more than plenty of people.
20th anniversary of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest
Today we will also have an special announcement of the long-awaited 20th anniversary of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, which will be held on December 11th 2020 in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. We will see a promotional video inviting us not to miss the powerful edition of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2022 that they are preparing. Also, the reigning winner of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, Maléna, will tell us three beautiful things about her country, which make it worth visiting Armenia. We will also see a clip of her triumph at the Junior Eurovision of 2021, during which she represented Armenia with her hit song “Qami, Qami” .
Where to watch?
Turin awaits! Do not forget that you can follow the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 live tonight, starting at 21:00 CEST on TV or on the ESCPlus multi-window system, which you can find by clicking here.
In case you cannot watch the contest on TV, make sure to watch it online! Below you can find a list of where you can watch the Eurovision Song Contest, either on TV or online.
| Country | Link | Alternative Link |
|---|---|---|
| Eurovision.tv | See | |
| Italy | See | See |
| Spain | See | |
| Sweden | See | |
| Portugal | See | See |
| Israel | See | See |
| Greece | See | |
| Malta | See | |
| Georgia | See | |
| Lithuania | See | |
| Slovenia | See | |
| Iceland | See | |
| Germany | See | See |
| Estonia | See | See |
| Austria | See | |
| Croatia | See | |
| Cyprus | See | See |
| Czech Republic | See | |
| Norway | See | See |
| Belgium | See | See |
| Romania | See | See |
Satellite
| Country | Channel | Satellite | Frequency | Polarity | SR | FEC |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Georgia | 1.tv Georgia | Azerspace (46.0° E) | 11095.00 | V | 30000 | 5/6 |
| Sweden | SVT1 HD | Thor 5 (0.8°W) | 11216.00 | V | 25000 | 3/4 |
| Portugal | RTPi | Hot Bird (13.0°E) | 11334.00 | H | 27500 | 3/4 |
| Germany | ONE HD | Astra (19.2°E) | 11052.75 | H | 22000 | 2/3 |
And don’t forget, there’s still time to vote in our semi-final poll– help us predict which countries will qualify!
Vote like a professional jury member
Tonight and on upcoming Thursday and Saturday you can vote like a professional jury member during the live shows! Make use of our score card, and feel like the final decision is in your hand. ESCplus makes the Eurovision Song Contest interactive, especially for you!