Sweden: Cornelia Jakobs and Robin Bengtsson are the two direct finalists of the first semi-final of Melodifestivalen 2022!

A while ago, Melodifestivalen 2022, probably your favourite national selection process of the entire list of participating countries in the Eurovision Song Contest, started off with its first semi-final show.

The show

Oscar Zia was the host of the night and as we already know, all the shows for the national selection procedure of the Swedish representative for this year’s contest in Turin will take place exclusively in Stockholm. The first semi-final took place at The Avicii Arena, one of Stockholm’s most iconic buildings which is also the largest spherical building in the world.

The first semi-final performers

• Malou Prytz – “Bananas”

• Theoz – “Som du vill”

• Shirley Clamp – “Let There Be Angels”

• Omar Rudberg – “Moving Like That”

• Danne Stråhed – “Hallabaloo”

• Cornelia Jakobs – “Hold Me Closer”

• Robin Bengtsson – “Innocent Love”

The new voting system

There will be two voting rounds. In each round, each viewer gets to vote five times at the most (five hearts). From this year an on, after all seven performances in each semi-final, SVT will announce the artist that received the most overall votes, both through the app and by phone, irrespective of the viewer age-bands.

The remaining six contestants, move on to the second voting round. The voters can then give each of the remaining songs five hearts at the most, same way like the first voting round. At the second voting round, the votes received during the first voting round also count against the total of votes received.

The results of the second voting round are determined by the system of the eight age-bands: 3–9 years old, 10–15years old, 16–29 years old, 30–44 years old, 45–59 years old, 60–74 years old, over 75, as well as the televotes.

All in all, we will have two direct qualifiers, one determined from the first voting round and one from the second voting round and also two qualifiers for the fifth semi-final, also from the second voting round.

The results

First voting round

• First voting round winner: Cornelia Jakobs with the song “Hold Me Closer“

Second voting round

Due to some technical issues, Oscar informed us that the viewers will not be able to vote from the Melodifestivalen dedicated smartphone app and the winners of both voting rounds will be determined by the televotes, solely.

• The two qualifiers to the fifth semi-final are: Danne Stråhed with the song “Hallabaloo“ and THEOZ with the song “Som Du Vill“

The verdict

The two direct qualifiers are Cornelia Jakobs with the song “Hold Me Closer” and Robin Bengtsson with the song “Innocent Love” and we will get to see them perform their songs live, on the 12th of March, when the finals will take place at Friends Arena. Starting from 2022, there will not be a winning performance of the two finalists anymore, as the TV time now fills up with the announcement of the results.

Those that qualified to the fifth semi-final, that replaced the second chance show in the new format of Melodifestivalen, were Danne Stråhed with the song “Hallabaloo”  and THEOZ with the song “Som Du Vill“.

Sadly Malou Prytz, Omar Rudberg and Shirley Clamp didn’t manage to qualify to either the fifth semi-final or the finals of Melodifestivalen.

See you next Saturday, after the second-semi final, when you will have the chance to be informed in detail about the results, as soon as they are announced on TV!

Stay tuned at Eurovisionfun, for all the latest developments regarding Sweden’s entry for Eurovision 2022!