Now that the first and second semi-finals have been battled out, we finally have a full lineup of 26 entries for Saturday's Grand Final – one of which will ultimately be the winner and snatch the coveted glass microphone trophy! There were some surprises among the results, but more on them later. Before we move on to the remaining entries, here are a few thoughts about the 2025 contest so far.
Having now heard all the songs from this edition of the contest, I don't know if this comes across as a particularly competitive year. This is not meant as a dismissal of any individual participants nor of what they bring to the table – it's just that compared to other recent contests, few songs emerge as immediate classics to be added to the Eurovision tapestry. I have a sneaking suspicion that 2025 might in the future be remembered as an in-between contest of sorts between stronger years, one that won't be looked back upon with exceptional fondness.
Perhaps paradoxically then, considering the 'weaker' overall level, the playing field seems to be much more level than usually. Mind you, I have intentionally been avoiding any betting odds so I might be completely off the mark. Still, I don't think there is a clear frontrunner at the moment whereas normally at this point, there would only be a small handful of contestants with a perceived change of winning. This makes the final night all the more interesting.
In the semi-finals, there seemed to be some small production issues. Some kinks with the camerawork and props could be noticed, and hopefully they will be ironed out by the final show. Such is the nature of live entertainment, of course, especially with this many moving parts. At least there's been nothing to the extent of 2022's infamous black sun fiasco.
The sound mixing was a more notable issue, however. The audience mics were turned jarringly low, which made the crowd sound muted and killed any sense of interaction between the performers and the arena. No doubt this was done to eliminate any signs of booing – they have been using anti-booing technology for the past decade, after all – but at what point does it simply become dishonest? Erasing negative responses and diminishing positive ones takes away from the authenticity and the live feel of the show, and there have even been comments circulating online about canned applause being employed to drown out the booing. But sometimes even the lead vocalists sounded oddly low in the mix.
Another thing I didn't care for was the new way of announcing semi-final qualifiers. It felt unnecessarily cruel to have constant close-ups on the contestants that kept failing to advance to the final and to have the camera zoom in on their disappointment multiple times. It served no meaningful purpose for storytelling or drama, so I truly hope they ditch that by next May.
Alright, now that I got all that off my chest, let's take a look at our Grand Final lineup!
