Eurovision 2025 Acts & Running Order Confirmed

The first Eurovision Song Contest since the American and U.K. elections were held is only a few weeks away, and it feels like the contest is trying to treble down on the dream of a unified Europe. Technically, "peace through the universal language of music" is the point of Eurovision, something the European Broadcast Union, which runs the event, has been over-emphasizing since Russia attacked Ukraine in 2023, freezing the Eurovision slogan at "Unified by Music" until further notice. But 2025 has done things one better, with a new mascot, "Lumo," which is an animated heart with a big mop of hair ready to sing its.... something out. (Um, do hearts have hearts?)

As we've noted in previous years, Eurovision contestants are chosen in many different ways, which boil down into two general umbrellas: public-voted and jury-voted. The U.K. uses one of the jury-voted methods, allowing both its act and song to arrive nice and early. However, those countries that use public voting methods tend to take longer, especially those that select their contestants using an Idol-like format of 8-12 weeks of television that begins in early January. Those contests have finally concluded, and all 37 participating countries have debuted their acts and the songs those acts will perform.

As always, Eurovision has put together a medley of the 37 acts in a single video so fans can get an idea of which ones hold promise and which are never making it out of the semi-finals.

It is not your imagination that this year's crop of acts are darker, gothier, and angrier than what typically gets selected, especially among the acts that landed their berths via public vote. Just like the public votes during the contest itself are a proxy for the populations of various European countries to express their feelings about the state of the world, the acts that make the final are also a bellwether for the mood across the continent, and many of these public contests were peaking right around the time the major countries in the EU started calling for the U.S. to be categorized as potentially hostile.

Also, the last few years have seen a massive resurgence of Eurovision acts voluntarily performing songs in their native languages. That may sound odd to those who haven't followed the contest for decades since National Pride is part of the point of the event, as is celebrating music as the language and the words not mattering so much. But in the show's early years, there was a belief that those who didn't sing in English were at a disadvantage, to the point that the EBU had to make a rule forcing acts to sing in their native tongue, and more than a couple responding by singing songs without words to circumvent what was seen as something detrimental.

The rule against singing in English if it wasn't your country's first language was lifted in 1999, and for the first decade of the 2000s, nearly every song was sung in English. However, since 2016, that English hegemony has begun to fade, and this year's contest features 23 of the 37 songs sung in languages other than English, at least for most of the performance.

Here is the full playlist of all 37 acts for your listening pleasure.

As always, the “Big Five,” the countries who provide the backbone of funding for the event — Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and the U.K. — and last year's winner, Switzerland, as this year’s host, is given direct passes to the Grand Final without having to perform in the semis, leaving 29 countries to be divvied out over the Tuesday and Thursday night performances. The odd number also means an uneven spread: Tuesday will have 15 performers compete; Thursday will have 16. However, as was the case last year, the Big Five (errr, Six) will also perform during the semi-finals, just not competitively, giving Tuesday's first semi-final 18 acts in total and Thursday's second semi-final 19 acts.

Like last year, only the countries competing can vote on their Semi-Final night as actual countries; all others are aggregated into what is called "The Rest of the World" Vote, a recent addition that came out of the EBU finding ways to get America and China to pay attention. (America also launched the American Song Contest, part of a long-term goal of bringing the country into Eurovision proper, a goal that is now very much up in the air as to whether it will continue.) 

Here is the running order for the Tuesday and Thursday semifinals:

As always, the BBC and Peacock will air the Semis and the Grand Final live, with Graham Norton on commentary on the former, and most likely no host for Peacock (Johnny Weir did it for the first two years, but 2024 was aired without any sort of framing device, and as far as anyone knows, the same is planned for 2025.) There will also be a live YouTube stream with zero commentary for those who cannot stand Norton's snark. 

The 2025 Eurovision Semi-Finals will stream live on Peacock on Tuesday, May 13, and Thursday, May 15, at 3 p.m. ET, with the Grand Final streaming live at 3 p.m. ET on Saturday, May 17, 2025.