The Eurovision 2024 final takes place on Saturday in Malmö, Sweden. Hours before the show, Eurovision is in “chaos,” with protesters taking to the streets to demand Israel’s exclusion from the contest. “Shame on you,” they shout, “Free, Free Palestine.” Competitors from 37 countries around the world qualified for the final after two semi-finals, with Sweden – this year’s host – crowning its rival Lorraine as the winner last year with the song “Tattoo”. News.ro reports.
France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Great Britain will perform tonight, always guaranteed a place in the Eurovision final.
Dutch representative Joost Klein was disqualified from the final after an incident backstage.
Sweden is hosting the tournament for the seventh time.
Protesters marched through Malmö demanding Israel’s divestment
Presented as a celebration of European diversity under the slogan “United by Music”, this year’s contest was brought into the political spotlight.
On Saturday, ahead of the final, protesters chanting “free, free Palestine” and “no more occupation” marched through Malmö to demand Israel’s exclusion from the competition. On Thursday, Israeli supporters also marched in support of Israeli rival Edan Golan.
Eurovision organizers resisted such calls, but demanded that Israel revise the original song’s lyrics to remove references to Palestinian group Hamas’ deadly October 7 attack on Israel.
Just before the final, protesters chanted in front of the arena
As Eurovision fans arrived at the Malmo Arena, protesters waved Palestinian flags and chanted: “Shame”, “Free, Free Palestine”, “Free, Free Rafah” and “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea”. Some people were escorted out of the crowd by the police.
How to vote
After all the songs have been performed, each country will award two sets of points. The first set is presented by a panel of five music industry professionals, while the other comes from the audience at home. Visitors from participating countries can vote by phone, SMS*, official application and esc.vote. Cannot vote for own country.
This year there has been a significant change to when you can vote. Previously, the public could vote only after all participants had presented themselves. However, now, the voting will be opened before the performance of the first song.
Additionally, fans in non-participating countries have almost 24 hours to vote for their favorite songs before the live show begins.
After the closing of the voting window (half an hour after the last song), the spokespersons of all the participating countries will reveal directly the points obtained by the jury.
Observer points from all participating countries are then added up and expressed from lowest score to highest score. This leads to the conclusion that reveals the winner of the 68th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest.
In a post on X, the organizers explained how the order of the competition will be affected following the elimination of the Dutch competitor.
As a result of the Netherlands not participating in the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest, the following will apply:
All competitors keep their number in the official running order. At position number 5 there will be no song.
The jury results obtained after Dress Rehearsal 2 on Friday, May 10, were recalculated so that the Netherlands would not receive any points. For this reason, all members of the jury must rank all songs from 1 to 26.
For example, if the Netherlands is ranked 9th by the national jury in a country, the song ranked 10th is now ranked 9th and gets 2 points, and the former song ranked 11th now ranks 10th and gets 1 point.
The Netherlands will not get any points from the visitors.
Viewers in the Netherlands can still vote in the Grand Final, and the Dutch jury’s decision is valid.
The EBU will inform all telecommunications partners that the Netherlands is no longer participating and will try to block the lines for Song 5. We ask that no one attempt to vote for Song 5. If someone tries to vote for it, his votes will not be there. Calculated, but visitors may be charged.
The Netherlands will not appear on the scoreboard.
Here’s what happened in Malmö this week
With Israel competing in Thursday’s semi-final, the week leading up to the match was so hectic that thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters took to the streets of Malmö, where the match is being held, to show their support for Gaza. .
On the day of the final, further drama followed the disqualification of Dutch competitor Joost Klein.
During a rehearsal, French contestant Slimani gave a speech about peace and unity, drawing applause from the audience.
Notably, Ireland’s contestant Bambi Tuck did not attend Friday night’s dress rehearsal
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