A few minutes ago each participating country got the answer they have been waiting for; their exact starting position in the semi-final and for the five automatically qualified countries, in the final. Poland and Bosnia & Herzegovina have the honour of opening while Greece and Ireland will close.
On the 17th of January the allocation draw took place. That determinded which countries were to take part in which semi-final. At the same time it was also decided in which half they would be. The exact running order everyone had to wait until today to find out.
As all the participating songs are now known and it looks to be quite an open contest with no big favourite, like we saw in 2009 with Alexander Rybak and 2010 with Lena, a lot of focus were on this draw. The participating countries each came with various wishes. Some wants to perform among the last songs as these ones are often remembered the best by the TV viewers who are voting, others have a particular lucky number they believe will bring them luck and for others it is important to be between songs in a different style than their own entry.
As usual five countries were drawn as the lucky ones to pick their own starting position; one in each half of the two semi’s and one in the final. Today that was:
Poland who picked nr. 1 based on that their participant had the same starting number in the national final.
Greece who decided to end the 1st semi-final in position 19 who they believe will be best.
Slovakia who went for starting position nr. 5 as it is a very romantic number.
Latvia who picked nr. 17 based on that their artist had asked for this number.
Spain who decided to go for 22 as that was Lena’s winning position.
| Starting position | Country in 1st semi-final | Country in 2nd semi-final | Country in final |
| 1 | Poland | Bosnia & Herzegovina | |
| 2 | Norway | Austria | |
| 3 | Albania | The Netherlands | |
| 4 | Armenia | Belgium | |
| 5 | Turkey | Slovakia | |
| 6 | Serbia | Ukraine | |
| 7 | Russia | Moldova | |
| 8 | Switzerland | Sweden | |
| 9 | Georgia | Cyprus | |
| 10 | Finland | Bulgaria | |
| 11 | Malta | FYR Macedonia | France |
| 12 | San Marino | Israel | Italy |
| 13 | Croatia | Slovenia | |
| 14 | Iceland | Romania | United Kingdom |
| 15 | Hungary | Estonia | |
| 16 | Portugal | Belarus | Germany |
| 17 | Lithuania | Latvia | |
| 18 | Azerbaijan | Denmark | |
| 19 | Greece | Ireland | |
| 20 | |||
| 21 | |||
| 22 | Spain | ||
| 23 | |||
| 24 | |||
| 25 |
The remaining spots in the final will be filled at the press conferences after each semi-final. Here the lucky qualifiers will draw their starting number.
1st semi-final takes place Tuesday the 10th of May, the second semi-final Thursday the 12th of May and the final Saturday the 14th of May.
