This morning, Australia was drawn into the first semi-final of Eurovision 2024.
This semi-final takes place the evening of Tuesday 7 May in Sweden and the morning of Wednesday 8 May in Australia.
Knowing which semi-final gives clarity to travellers going to Malmö for their plans and for those back in Australia, you know whether to take a day's leave or just leave your morning free of meetings!
But in terms of so-called "friendly" countries voting for us, was this a good draw?
X (former known as Twitter) user @DolphinDane provided the Eurovision community with a thorough analysis of public vote patterns (as the semi-finals are decided by 100% public vote).
Instead of looking at total points, it looks at the bias each country has. This is represented by a positive number (which means that country gives more points on average) or a negative number (which means the country gives less points on average).
So going into the draw Australia wanted to get and avoid the following countries from each respective pot.
We wanted to get these nations:
Pot 1: Albania
Pot 2: Iceland
Pot 3: Israel
Pot 4: Malta
Pot 5: Poland
Voting countries: Sweden
We drew Iceland, Poland and Sweden. But didn't get Albania, Israel or Malta.
A pretty even result.
We wanted to avoid these nations:
Pot 1: Switzerland
Pot 2: Estonia
Pot 3: Georgia
Pot 4: Greece
Pot 5: Moldova
Voting countries: Italy
We avoided Switzerland, Estonia, Georgia, Greece and Italy. But we did get Moldova.
We did well!
What do the numbers say?
Of the 17 countries voting for us 8 had a positive score, 8 had negative and Luxembourg had neither.
Overall, that sounds just ok, however, those numbers a misleading.
The average negative rating was -0.53 which isn't too bad while the average positive nations' score was high at +1.05.
An neutral draw would see the overall average as 0.00.
For Australia, it was +0.26.
This is a great result!
Stop talking numbers and talk countries!
Ok, so below are all the nations who are competing or voting in our semi-final. Their scores are how generous they are doing Australia in the public vote.
Iceland: 2.65
Finland: 1.56
Sweden: 1.32
Ireland: 1.25
Germany: 0.62
Poland: 0.49
UK: 0.44
Portugal: 0.2
--
Azerbaijan: -0.08
Cyprus: -0.45
Moldova: -0.5
Lithuania: -0.55
Croatia: -0.56
Ukraine: -0.64
Slovenia: -0.71
Serbia: -0.81
Luxembourg does not have a score as they have never been able to vote for Australia.
Overall
Overall, this is a great draw for Australia.
We have gained some great allies in the Scandinavian nations of Iceland, Finland and Sweden as well as western Europe's Ireland, Germany and the UK (plus Poland who have always been generous to us).
We've avoided the four biggest detractors in Georgia, Armenia, Switzerland and Italy.
Of course it all comes down to the song and if you're good enough to get through, you're good enough to get through!
But an advantageous draw certainly doesn't hurt.
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