A scene from the music video of ‘Don’t Deny’ by Geneology, Armenia’s entry for Eurovision 2015

BY DAISY WYATT
From The Independent

VIENNA—The voting procedure for Europe’s largest and cheesiest singing competition surely can’t be that complicated, can it?

For Eurovision aficionado’s the 50/50 telephone-jury process is old news, but if you’re confused by the existence of two semi-finals and want to know what “nul point” really means, look no further.

Forty countries will compete in the Eurovision 2015 final, up from last year’s twenty-six and including Australia as a random but special one-off to mark the contest’s 60th anniversary.

These countries are whittled down in two semi-finals. The ten countries with the highest scores from each semi-final will quality for the grand final.

Semi-final 1
The first semi-final will take place on Tuesday, May 19 in Vienna, Austria.

The 16 countries taking part will be: Moldova, Armenia, Belgium, Netherlands, Finland, Greece, Estonia, Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary, Belarus, Russia, Denmark, Albania, Romania and Georgia.

Austria, France, Spain and Australia will vote in this semi-final.

The ten highest-scoring acts will go on to win a place in the final, six will be eliminated.

Semi-final 2
The second semi-final will take place on Thursday, May 21, in the same venue.

It will feature 17 different countries to the first semi-final, which takes place two days beforehand.

The countries taking part will be: Lithuania, Ireland, San Marino, Montenegro, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Czech Republic, Israel, Latvia, Azerbaijan, Iceland, Sweden, Switzerland, Cyprus, Slovenia and Poland.

Italy, Germany, the UK and Australia will vote in this semi-final.

Ten of the highest-scoring countries will be awarded a place in the final.