Eurovision 2026 Semi-Final 1 Recap: Israel Tops 269 Points, Five Eliminated In Vienna — The 12-Points Distribution That Foreshadowed The Grand Final

The 70th Eurovision Song Contest opened on Tuesday 12 May 2026 at the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna. Fifteen entries competed for 10 Grand Final qualifying tickets, with juries and televoters in each competing country (plus Italy, Germany, and the Rest-of-the-World aggregate online vote) splitting influence 50/50. The qualifiers were not announced in order of finish — full points were released after the Grand Final.

Betfred — Bet £10 Get £50 in Free Bets on Eurovision 2026

The 10 qualifiers and 5 eliminations

Italy (Sal Da Vinci) and Germany (Sarah Engels) performed their Grand Final entries during the show as guests — both were already qualified as Big-5 nations.

Combined points table — top 10

The 12-points distribution — who locked in the jury and who owned the public vote

The 12-point award is the maximum any single voting bloc can give. In Semi-Final 1, the jury and televote produced clearly different rankings of favourites.

Jury 12-points received

Televote 12-points received

Two patterns from this night that survived through to Saturday's Grand Final: Israel's televote ceiling held (it went on to take 220 televote points in the final, third behind Bulgaria and Romania), and Poland's jury appeal proved sticky (it received 133 jury points in the Grand Final and remained second-highest jury-favourite of the contest behind only Bulgaria). The two together explained why bookmaker positions on Israel held into Saturday despite the Bulgarian televote surge that nobody yet saw coming.

Why Estonia going out was the night's biggest surprise

Vanilla Ninja's Too Epic To Be True opened with strong fan-poll pre-event momentum — the band's 2003-era Eurovision credentials and a televised reunion-narrative made them a popular outside qualification pick. They received one set of 12 in the televote but failed to convert across enough mid-range scores to push past the qualifying line.

The other four eliminations were largely as the bookmakers priced them: Portugal's Bandidos do Cante (a folk-fusion entry that struggled to translate stage-wise), Georgia's Bzikebi (a small-language entry from a country whose Eurovision return after a multi-year gap got little promotional support), Montenegro's Tamara Živković (whose Grand Final probability was 11% on average across UK books at lock-in), and San Marino's SENHIT featuring Boy George (a star collaboration that did not survive juries despite strong YouTube pre-event traffic).

Opening and interval moments worth flagging

The night was opened by Vicky Leandros performing "L'amour est bleu" — her 1967 Luxembourg entry — backed by a 70-member choir to mark the 70th anniversary of the contest. The interval acts were the acrobatic Zurcaroh ensemble ("Welcome to the Funfair") and a comedy bit by hosts Victoria Swarovski and Michael Ostrowski titled "Opposites", in which they explored the distinction between Austria and Australia with a cameo from 2025 Australian representative Go-Jo.

The betting-market context

UK bookmaker pre-show pricing on the SF1 qualifier markets had Israel, Finland, Sweden and Croatia all priced below 1.10 to qualify — all four duly qualified. The two qualifying-market surprises were Belgium (priced 1.91 to qualify, came through 10th in points) and Lithuania (priced 2.40 to qualify, came through 8th). Sweden's 9th-place semi-final result was the first sign that FELICIA's "My System" — pre-contest Spotify rank #2 with 18.6M streams — was struggling to convert streaming to live-show points; that pattern would reassert itself catastrophically in the Grand Final, where Sweden finished 20th.

Related

• Eurovision 2026 full results — Semi-Final 1 + 2 running orders
• Eurovision 2026 12-points distribution (SF1, SF2 and Final)
• Eurovision 2027 preview — Bulgaria hosts

18+. Please gamble responsibly. BeGambleAware.org. GAMSTOP. When the fun stops, stop.