By Isabelle Yr Carlsson
MALMÖ, Sweden (Reuters) -The world's biggest live music event, Eurovision Song Contest, will take place in Sweden in the second week of May with 37 participating countries.
Roughly 100,000 visitors from 89 countries are expected in host city Malmö during the week for the 68th edition of the competition.
WHEN IS THE EUROVISION SONG CONTEST 2024?
The event will kick off on May 7 at 1900 GMT for the first semi-final, followed by a second semi-final two days later.
The Grand Final will be held on Saturday, May 11 at 1900 GMT.
WHERE IS EUROVISION BEING HELD?
The Eurovision Song Contest 2024 will take place in Malmö, Sweden's third-largest city with a population of 362,000. The city also hosted Eurovision in 1992 and in 2013.
Sweden has hosted Eurovision seven times in total, counting in 2024. Stockholm, the capital, hosted the competition in 1975, 2000, and 2016 and Gothenburg in 1985.
The concert venue is Malmö Arena with a capacity of up to 15,500.
HOW DOES VOTING WORK?
Viewers decide the results of the two semi-finals and can vote up to 20 times, either by phone, text message or via a Eurovision app.
Viewers in the 15 countries taking part in Semi-Final 1 are eligible to vote alongside three of the countries pre-qualified for the Grand Final - Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
Viewers in the 16 countries taking part in Semi-Final 2 are eligible to vote alongside three of the other countries pre-qualified for the Grand Final – France, Italy and Spain.
In the final, audience votes will make up half of the result, while juries of five music professionals in each participating country will make up the other half.
The juries will rank the songs based on composition and originality of the song, quality of the stage performance, the artists' vocal capacity, and their overall impression of the act.
Each country will award points from 1 to 8, 10 and 12.
Non-participating countries around the world will also be able to vote, and will collectively have the weight of one additional voting country.
New to this year's Eurovision, viewers outside the participating countries can vote 24 hours prior each semi-final and the Grand final.
WHO COMPETES IN THE FIRST SEMI-FINAL?
Cyprus, Serbia, Lithuania, Ireland, Ukraine, Poland, Croatia, Iceland, Slovenia, Finland, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Australia, Portugal, and Luxembourg.
WHO COMPETES IN THE SECOND SEMI-FINAL?
Malta, Albania, Greece, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Austria, Denmark, Armenia, Latvia, San Marino, Georgia, Belgium, Estonia, Israel, Norway, and the Netherlands.
WHO COMPETES IN THE GRAND FINAL?
The top 10 from each semi-final will participate in the final.
The previous year's winner and host nation Sweden has automatic entry to the final as well as the "Big Five" countries: United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
There will be 26 acts in total in the final.
WHY THE 'BIG FIVE'?
The "Big Five" countries are France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, which bring the biggest financial contribution to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
Since 2000, these countries have secured themselves an automatic spot in the Grand Final.
HOW TO WATCH IT
The song contest will be broadcast by all 37 participating countries. It will also be streamed on YouTube.
WHO IS THE FAVOURITE TO WIN EUROVISION?
Bookmakers have Croatia, Switzerland and Ukraine as the top three favourites to win, while streaming data from Spotify suggests a strong chance for the Netherlands, Italy or host nation Sweden.
WHO ARE THE PRESENTERS?
The song contest will be presented by Swedish comedian and actress Petra Mede and Swedish-American actress Malin Åkerman.
EUROVISION HISTORY
The Eurovision song contest is one of the world's largest television events, and has been held annually since 1956.
Eurovision features live music performances from most European countries and beyond, including Israel and Australia.
Originally it started as a technical experiment for transnational broadcast television with only seven countries competing: the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, France, Luxembourg, and Italy.
The show reached 162 million people in 2023 through public service markets.
WHICH COUNTRIES HAVE WON THE MOST EUROVISIONS?
Sweden and Ireland are leading with seven wins each. France, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands have each won five times, with the Netherlands as the most recent of the four countries to win in 2019.
WHO WON LAST YEAR?
Swedish singer Loreen won last year's competition in Liverpool for the second time with her song "Tattoo". She is the only person after Ireland's Johnny Logan to win the contest twice.
(Reporting by Isabelle Yr Carlsson and Louise Breusch Rasmussen; Editing by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen, Sharon Singleton and Christina Fincher)
