Tonight, the semi-final allocation draw will take in Basel ahead of the Eurovision Song Contest in May.
It's one of the most significant events in the Eurovision calendar ahead of the actual Contest.
It'll determine which semi-final Australia is in and which countries we are up against.
With the new 100% public vote system, it's important Australia gains as many friends in our semi-final and avoids some foes.
In 2024, Australia missed out despite having more nations vote for Electric Fields (13) than both Serbia (8) and Slovenia (12) who qualified.
Serbia and Slovenia had strong allies in the semi-final that gave them high points rather than Australia's lower points among all countries. So who you draw does count!
Allocation pots
The allocation is done by pulling out nations at random for pre-decided pots of six or seven nations.
These pots are based on previous voting patterns to avoid nations having too many "friends" in one semi-final (eg all the Balkan or all the Nordic countries can't all be placed together).
Australia has been placed with the Scandinavian/Nordic pot where we traditionally share votes.
How do we know who we want or don't want?
Thankfully the Twitter/X user Dolphin Dane has done his annual statistical analysis of how countries have voted.
This spits out a positive or negative numbers. The higher the positive number, the more likely that nation has given better than average points to that country. While it's the opposite case for the negative number.
The author also notes: All numbers are based on televote scores from 2014 to 2024. This scores indicates what share of the scale from first to last countries overrate each other. So a score of 50% would mean that the country usually rates the country half of the scale, ~7 places higher than the average.
Best and worst of each pot
Pot 1
Best:
Estonia +8.0%
Also good:
Luxembourg +6.3%
Netherlands +5.7%
Lithuania +5.0% Latvia +4.2%
Worst:
Czechia -8.2%
Also not good:
Belgium -1.2%
Pot 2
Best:
Israel +9.2%
Also good:
Poland +1.7%
Worst:
Georgia -20.9%
Also not good:
Armenia -12.7%
Azerbaijan -6.7%
Pot 3
Best
Austria +2.6%
Also good:
Albania +1.6%
Worst:
Montenegro -12.3%
Also not good:
Serbia -6.6%
Croatia -5.7%
Slovenia -4.2%
Pot 4
Best:
Malta +15.3%
Also good:
Ireland +10.5%
Worst:
San Marino -9.6%
Also not good
Cyprus -4.3%
Greece -3.6%
Portugal -2.4%
Pot 5
Best:
Denmark +17.5%
Also good:
Sweden +15.6%
Iceland +15.1%
Finland +14.6%
Worst:
Norway +10.7%
Pot 6
Best:
United Kingdom +8.3%
Also good:
Germany +6.5%
Worst
Italy -16.4%
Also not good
Spain -9.4%
France -8.4%
Switzerland -2.9%
Overall - Best case scenario
Pot 1
Estonia
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Pot 2
Israel
Poland
Ukraine
Pot 3
Austria
Albania
Slovenia
Pot 4
Malta
Ireland
Portugal
Pot 5
Denmark
Sweden
Iceland
Pot 6
UK
Germany
Switzerland
Overall - Worst case scenario
Pot 1
Czechia
Belgium
Latvia
Pot 2
Georgia
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Pot 3
Montenegro
Serbia
Croatia
Pot 4
San Marino
Cyprus
Greece
Pot 5
Norway
Finland
Pot 6
Italy
Spain
France
When and where to watch
The semi-final draw will be available to watch on YouTube from 10:30pm AEDT.
Read next:
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