Group Politics and the Semifinal Draw

One of my favorite things about Eurovision is all the politics around who is voting for who. Of course everyone's first Eurovision joke is Greece and Cyprus will always give 12 points to eachother and Armenia and Azerbaijan would rather die than give a single vote to their regional rivals. But interestingly there are also more complex relationships where Balklan, Baltic and Central European countries will often focus their votes in ways that advance their entries into the Grand Final. This has actually been the subject of Academic study!

The blocks of nations likely to vote for or against each other.

Anyways, this has led to numerous strategies to avoid collusion on the part of the EBU rules governing the Eurovision Song Contest. The most recent rules try to break of voting blocks that might favor countries in the Semi-Final. There is a random draw of nations from blocks to try and separate natural allies into different Semifinals. And also seperate a few natural enemies...

I bring all this up to add a little context to the process of the semi-final draws that were announced this week. The producers of EBU randomize entries to first or back half of the semi-final, however they reserve the perogative to arrange things specifically beyond that, which is largely to (1) create a more logical flow to the songs and avoid running five ballads in a row, and (2) ease the demands of the techs who are resetting the stage every 3-4 minutes on live TV. Without further ado...