The Eurovision Song Contest is just around the corner and frankly the world could not be in more need of the glitter Olympics. It’s time to start prepping your Eurovision 2022 parties, rank your fave international tunes and of course get ready to support our incredible Aussie act.
When is Eurovision 2022?
Eurovision 2022 will take place from 7 am on Wednesday May 11 AEST to 7 am Sunday May 15. It’ll be broadcast on SBS.
Each competing country features in one of two semi-finals. Each semi-final is then divided into two halves. Maths!
Australia’s competing in the first half of the second semi-final. We’ll be up against Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Finland, Georgie, Israel, Malta, San Marino and Serbia. That semi final will be broadcast on May 13 in Australia.
The top ten voted acts from each semi-final then go into the grand final, which is held on May 15.
Where is Eurovision 2022?
Eurovision 2022 is taking place in Torino, Italy. It’ll be held in the Palasport Olimpico.
Who is hosting Eurovision 2022?
Italy is hosting Eurovision 2022 after its act Måneskin won Eurovision 2021 with the absolute banger “Zitti E Buoni”.
Måneskin’s win marked Italy’s third ever Eurovision triumph.
Australians at Eurovision
Australia first competed in Eurovision back in 2015. Impressively we’ve made it into the top ten a solid four times in six years. Nice work, team.
Our first ever Aussie rep was Guy Sebastian. Maybe we’ll get Shannon Noll in 2023?
Sheldon Riley
Our rep for 2022 is the fkn fabulous Sheldon Riley. Sheldon Riley won the annual Australia Decides competition, where a jury and the public vote to decide our Eurovision rep.
You might remember Sheldon from his performances on The X Factor and The Voice. He came third on The Voice (pretty impressive if you ask me) and then competed on The Voice All Stars.
He won Eurovision Australia Decides with absolute banger “Not The Same”.
He’ll be traveling to compete in Turin.
Why is Australia in Eurovision?
Australia was first invited to perform at the 2014 semi-final interval. Clearly, the Europeans fucking loved it because we then got invited to compete in 2015.
It was the 60th anniversary of Eurovision and theme was ‘Building Bridges’. It would take a pretty fkn big bridge to get to Australia, so I guess the power of song had to do.
And look, Eurovision loved us so much that it’s kept inviting us back! Australia will be in the competition until at least 2023 because SBS secured a five year deal in 2019.
I reckon we can take top spot at least once.
Eurovision is broadcast on SBS, which is part of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). To compete in Eurovision countries have to be broadcast on an EBU TV network.
How does Eurovision voting work?
Now bear with me, ‘cos voting is a lil confusing. Each country has a jury of five professionals from the music industry. But also viewers from each country get to vote (and you can’t vote for your own country).
In the semi-finals, only the countries in that semi-final round can vote. But in the grand final all countries involved get to vote. Democracy, babes!
Each country gets two sets of points to give, one for the jury and one for the viewers. You can award countries 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 or 12 points.
Who won Eurovision 2021?
Italy won Eurovision in 2021 with Måneskin’s song “Zitti E Buoni”.
