This year’s Eurovision Song Contest theme art, a Dandelion flower (or an Ikea lamp!) and the Beatles sounding slogan Come Together was revealed today where also the allocation draw took place. The speculations about who will qualify for the final can now begin.
Theme art and slogan
First up today was the revealing of the theme art. This year’s theme art is based on the colours blue and pink and a big dandelion of shining seeds which come together and form a unity.The logo is made by the agency INGO. Their Art Director Rikard Holst explains that “The symbol is a dandelion with reverse function. It is made up of small seeds, coming together from all over Europe to gather in our magical flower and visualize the positive energy that occurs when the music’s joy and power come together at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2016“.
We however are sure that it won’t be long before fans will start making the theme art with a Maskros lamp from Ikea instead as the similarity is quite big.
The slogan for this year’s contest is Come Together, so the rumours that started yesterday about it being a Beatles song title indeed was true.
Big5 + host voting
At today’s allocation draw which took place in the City Hall of Stockholm, the same venue which will be used for the opening reception of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. The automatically qualified countries, host country and the so called Big5, was given a semi-final in which they will be voting. They will not compete in the semi-finals, but they have to broadcast it and to vote.
Voting in semi-final 1: Sweden (decided beforehand by EBU), Spain, France
Voting in semi-final 2: Germany (on request from broadcaster), United Kingdom, Italy
Semi-final allocation draw
The semi-finalists were drawn first into a semi-final and after that into first or second half of that semi-final which will be from where they will be starting. Their exact starting number will not be known before all countries have submitted their entries and the visual wishes for those. Based on that the producers will plan the best order of performances – with the only guarantee to the countries that they stay in the half they were drawn into. The producer deciding order was something which this year’s host country Sweden introduced last time they were hosting the contest, which was in 2013.
Semi-final 1:
| Country | First or second half |
| Croatia | First half |
| Finland | First half |
| Moldova | First half |
| Armenia | First half |
| Greece | First half |
| Hungary | First half |
| F.Y.R. Macedonia | First half |
| Russia | First half |
| The Netherlands | First half |
| San Marino | First half |
| Azerbaijan | Second half |
| Cyprus | Second half |
| Malta | Second half |
| Bosnia & Herzegovina | Second half |
| Estonia | Second half |
| Czech Republic | Second half |
| Montenegro | Second half |
| Iceland | Second half |
| Austria | Second half |
Semi-final 2:
| Country | First or second half |
| Latvia | First half |
| Belarus | First half |
| Ireland | First half |
| Switzerland | First half |
| Australia | First half |
| Lithuania | First half |
| Poland | First half |
| Israel (by request) | First half |
| Serbia | First half |
| Albania | Second half |
| Bulgaria | Second half |
| Denmark | Second half |
| Romania | Second half |
| Georgia | Second half |
| Slovenia | Second half |
| Norway | Second half |
| Ukraine | Second half |
| Belgium | Second half |
The countries were before the draw placed in pots based on voting pattern.
Pot 1: Albania, F.Y.R. Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina
Pot 2: Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia
Pot 3: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Russia, Ukraine
Pot 4: Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, Australia, The Netherlands, Bulgaria
Pot 5: Czech Republic, Lithuania, Ireland, Malta, Poland, San Marino
Pot 6: Austria, Hungary, Israel, Moldova, Romania, Switzerland
