The Semi Final draws for Eurovision 2013 have just been announced in Malmö, Sweden by Pernilla Månsson Col, who was assisted by Josefine Sundström.

Ireland have gotten a good position in Semi Final 1 and this we are fortunate to have the UK & Sweden voting in our final as they traditionally give us good votes

The full results are as follows:

SEMI FINAL 1

FIRST HALF

• Denmark
• Croatia
• Ukraine
• The Netherlands
• Austria
• Slovenia
• Estonia
• Russia

SECOND HALF

• Lithuania
• Serbia
• Ireland
• Belarus
• Cyprus
• Montenegro
• Belgium
• Moldova

VOTING IN SEMI FINAL 1

• United Kingdom
• Sweden
• Italy

SEMI FINAL 2

FIRST HALF

• Latvia
• Azerbaijan
• Malta
• Iceland
• San Marino
• FYR Macedonia
• Finland
• Bulgaria

SECOND HALF

• Israel
• Norway
• Albania
• Hungary
• Switzerland
• Georgia
• Greece
• Armenia
• Romania

VOTING IN SEMI FINAL 2

• France
• Germany
• Spain

Earlier than normal Dansk MGP takes place on Saturday 21st of January – only 2 weeks away and already has been shrouded in controversy as many of ye already know, Tine Lynggard’s ‘Nowhere’ was disqualified for being released on the interwebs earlier last year so now the usual line up of 10 is now 9.

The line-up for Dansk MGP will be :

1. Jesper Norshtedt - Take out hearts
2. Aya - Best thing I got
3. Kenneth Potempa - Reach the sky
4. Ditte Marie - Overflow
5. Phillip Hallou & Emilia - Baby love me
6. Suriya - Forever I be young 
7. Karen Viuff - Universe
8. Soluna Samaay - Should have known better
9. Chris Brons and Patrick Isaksson - Venter 

The Danes have also livened things up a little with new voting rules – basically as well as public voting they now have international jury voting for the final selection – once they get to 3 entries – it’s all public until that point. Germany, Norway, Russia and Azerbaijan each have 10 percent of the vote as well as the native Danish jury with the other 10% and the public making up the remaining 50%. As you may notice this is the previous 4 winning countries.

Edit: You can now listen to the songs here: http://www.dr.dk/melodigrandprix/Artikler/2012/smuglyt.htm

For entertainment in the final Alexander Rybak continues his tour of national finals as well as last years winners for Denmark – A friend in London.

Alex Sparrow (Rus 11) is sporting a new tattoo, now Alex maybe if you took your top off more you might have done better than 16th place.

The utturley fabulous world of Scandinavian music is making it’s way on to Dance Nation TV!

Dance Nation will be trialling “Scandipop’s” list of Scandinavian hits for one hour, every week for four weeks.

If this proves to be popular, they will continue to show it every week.

This is a huge coop for Scandinavian music lovers in the UK and Ireland.

I am personally very excited at the prospect that this will be shown every week from now on. I can’t get enough of the Scandinavian music scene and already being a huge fan of Dance Nation TV, I am totally obsessed already!

The show is set to feature lots of Scandinavia’s biggest stars including September, Eric Saade, Agnes, Infernal, Swedish House Mafia, Eric Pridz, Star Pilots, Ola, Elin Lanto and Danny & Freja!!

Also I will be hoping that they will feature some other artists not released commercially here but still well known in Eurovision/Schlager circles such as Velvet, Alcazar and Jenny Silver to name a few but I have to admit Velvet being aired is an absolute must for me!

This one hour “Scandipop” extravaganza , which is starting on Friday 7th October on Sky, will also be repeated on two other occasions throughout the same week for anyone who may miss it.

The times are:

Every Friday morning at 10AM

Every Saturday afternoon at 4pm

Every Monday Night/Tuesday Morning at 12 midnight.

Sky Channel 376.

Visit “Scandipop’s” website for more updates and info on all the best artists coming from Scandinavia! www.scandipop.co.uk

Here are some video’s you can enjoy which I think will most likely feature on the programme:

Danny & Freja with “If Only You”:

Elin Lanto with “Discotheque”

September with “Resuscitate Me”

Star Pilots with “In The Heat Of The Night”:

Agnes with “I Need You Now”:

And my personal favourite, Velvet with “Victorious”:

And more Velvet with an absolute stomper “Come Into The Night” (This is only audio but an excellent song):

It’s the first time London has had a proper “Schlager” night for a while and we Melodifestivalen fanatics here at Escireland.com could not be more happy!

Schlagerfest, London’s new and independent regular schlager club night, launches on Friday 29th July 2011 at the Loom bar on Clipstone Street, W1W 6BB. The party will start at 8.30pm and run right through the night until 2 am. Entry is £5 with advance booking from www.schlagerfest.co.uk and that entrance fee also includes a free Kopparberg cider. A limited number of tickets will be available on the door on the night but will cost slightly more at £8. All proceeds from the tickets are going to the charity, The Terence Higgins Trust.

The wonderful DJ Dave Simmons will be belting out schlager hit after hit for the night with the classics being played from 8.30pm to 11pm, then moving on to the more modern schlager with a special tribute to the truly original schlager dance stompers Alcazar as they are due to be taking a break after next weekend with their last performance at Schlager Pride in Stockholm.

Along with Alcazar’s hit, you will hear plenty of the Sclager favourites like Charlotte Perrelli, Carola, Linda Bengtzing, Velvet, Lena Philipsson, Sanna Nielsen, Timoteji, Eric Saade, Danny Saucedo among many, many more!

So if you are in or around London, get over to Clipstone Street for one of the best parties on the Schlager/Eurovision circuit. Just because some of you are in Ireland, no excuses, pack ur bag and get a flight over to the shopping and partying capital of London and get yourself down to Schlagerfest!

Escireland.com will be there to soak up the atmosphere, take in the sights, feel the rhythm of the dancefloor and just get completely carried away in all the Schlager madness that is Schlagerfest!  Having been to this event before, Escireland.com can highly recommend a truly hopping, fun night at Loom bar tomorrow night!

If you are lucky, Escireland.com may reward it’s wonderful readers with some pictures of all the goings on from the event!

The wait is over and with more than 2,000 votes cast we have a winner for the 2011 Kate Ryan award, the song that you wanted to see in the Eurovision final 2011.

I want to personally thank you one and all who voted, but can we have a second of silence for poor FYR Macedonia who received no votes at all, not one, not a single sausage

And the 2011 winner is:

Magdalena Tul – Jestem – Poland

Gratulacje Polska, bardzo dobry mecz ! A well deserved win!

Runner up

Stella Mwangi – Habba Habba – Norway

Poor Stella, always seems destined to be a runner up. But we love her anyway

According to Entertainment.ie the Irish family trio from Cork that became an ?internet sensation? last year (although we do prefer the ?Pantibar? version), have entered talks to represent Ireland in Azerbaijan next year.

19-year-old Dervla (the daughter) is sitting her Leaving Cert at this very moment, but she recently took a break from her revision to babble at The Independent about the year gone by: “I’ve worked hard but there’s been so much going on over the past year… Music is what I want to do – and the past year has just been incredible.”

Super, that’s all very nice, but what of this Eurovision claim *in bustles Mammy Mary* “We are having a meeting in a few weeks’ time with some people about the whole idea”… of your son hucklebucking his way around Azerbaijan.

While we love the cheesiness of Crystal Swing I really hope that they do not represent Ireland, I don’t think I can take that.

The 2011 Kate Ryan award 2011 is now open to voting.

For 2011 there is a lot of competition for the title, many countries that were expected to qualify didn’t and other powerhouses like Russia were struggling to get through, proving that no one is safe, apart from Greece who if they sent in “Baa Baa Black Sheep” in Greek will still get into the top ten, don’t worry people from Greece ye have good songs and we do love them So should Norway have nudged their way in there, should Turkey have trounced all competition or did Poland not flash her knickers enough. Vote below for the song that you think should have made it to the Eurovision Final 2011. The results will be revealed on June 24th 2011. Good luck to all competitors.

In case you are unfamiliar with any of the songs, we will include a link to all of them underneath the poll.

Albania – Aurela Gaçe “Feel the Passion” (Popup)

Armenia – Emmy “Boom Boom” (Popup)

Belarus – Anastasia Vinnikova “I Love Belarus” (Popup)

Belgium – Witloof Bay “With Love Baby”(Popup)

Bulgaria – Poli Genova “Na inat” (Popup)

Croatia – Daria “Celebrate” (Popup)

Cyprus – Christos Mylordos “San aggelos s’agapisa” (Popup)

Israel – Dana International “Ding Dong” (Popup)

Latvia – Musiqq “Angel in Disguise” (Popup)

Macedonia – Vlatko Ilievski “Rusinka” (Popup)

Malta – Glen Vella “One Life” (Popup)

Netherlands – 3JS “Never Alone” (Popup)

Norway – Stella Mwangi “Habba Habba” (Popup)

Poland – Magdalena Tul “Jestem” (Popup)

Portugal – Homens da Luta “A luta é alegria” (Popup)

San Marino – Senit “Stand by” (Popup)

Slovakia – TWiiNS “I’m Still Alive” (Popup)

Turkey – Yüksek Sadakat “Live it up” (Popup)

They have barely come down from their trip to Düsseldorf and their is already speculation that Jedward are going to try and do better next year and represent us in Baku and maybe return Eurovision glory to Ireland.

According to thejournal.ie

The duo’s manager Louis Walsh said that he would strongly consider re-entering the twins into the 2012 Eurovision in Azerbaijan, the Irish Independent reports. “Ireland could definitely win Eurovision again and we might do it next year with Jedward. I think after what happened this year, Jedward would do incredibly well in Eurovision 2012,” Walsh told the newspaper.

The brothers, from Lucan in Dublin, came in 8th in the contest last Saturday. Despite not taking the crown, however, the reception to the pair has been good.

With Jedward hitting number one on itunes in Austria, Germany Sweden and Ireland and climbing in a number of other countries, maybe it wouldnt be a bad idea!

Related articles

• Eurovision 2012 – Baku (escireland.com)

So the 2011 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest is barely over and moves are already underway for the 57th Eurovision Song Contest. So far we have a logo and location city.

We also have some prelimary dates for your calender.

• Semi Final 1: 22nd May 2012
• Semi Final 2: 24th May 2012
• Final: 26th May 2012

So far 8 countries have confirmed their participation in Eurovision next year. They are:

• Austria
• Azarbaijan (host)
• Belgium
• Estonia
• Finland
• Germany
• Netherlands
• Switzerland

In 2009/2010 Azerbaijan was suppoesed to host the 3rd Eurovision Dance Contest. This was cancelled due to not enough interest. It is doubtful that this will happen to next years contest, but it means that ?ctimai Television have an idea of what they have to organise in 12 months time.

So who is going to Baku?