Eurovision publishes Grand Final running order for Vienna

The European Broadcasting Union and host broadcaster ORF published the running order for the Eurovision Song Contest 2026 Grand Final on Friday, fixing the sequence for Saturday’s show in Vienna. The final will feature 25 countries at Wiener Stadthalle, according to the official Eurovision event page. Denmark will perform first and Austria, this year’s host country, will perform last. Friday’s publication came after the second semi-final completed the lineup for the May 16 show. Eurovisionworld, citing the producer’s decision under the contest’s allocation-draw system, listed all 25 running positions overnight. The official Eurovision event page shows the same order for the grand final scheduled for 9 p.m. Central European Summer Time on Saturday. (eurovision.com) ### Which countries are opening and closing the final in Vienna? Denmark’s Søren Torpegaard Lund will open the grand final with “Før Vi Går Hjem,” according to the official Eurovision running-order page. Austria’s COSMÓ will close the show with “Tanzschein,” giving the host broadcaster ORF the final performance slot on home soil. The full official sequence runs from Denmark, Germany, Israel and Belgium through to Romania and Austria at No. 25. (eurovisionworld.com) The page lists, in order, Albania, Greece, Ukraine, Australia, Serbia, Malta, Czechia, Bulgaria, Croatia, the United Kingdom, France, Moldova, Finland, Poland, Lithuania, Sweden, Cyprus, Italy, Norway and Romania between those bookends. (eurovision.com) ### Who made the 25-country field for Saturday night? Thirty countries started in the two semi-finals, with 15 nations competing in each show for 10 places apiece in the final, ORF said when it outlined the semi-final format in January. Austria, as host, and France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom were already qualified for the grand final. Thursday’s second semi-final completed the field, and ORF’s Eurovision site described the final lineup as 25 acts spanning multiple genres. (eurovision.com) The official Eurovision grand final page now lists all 25 finalists with artist names and songs in performance order. ### What do the Austrian audience figures show before the final? ORF said on May 13 that as many as 652,000 viewers watched the first semi-final on ORF 1, with audience share among viewers aged 12 to 29 reaching as high as 45%. (tv.orf.at) The broadcaster said a total of 1.760 million people watched Eurovision-related programming across ORF on May 12. ORF has not surfaced, in the material reviewed for this report, a comparable corporate press release for second semi-final audience figures by Friday afternoon. (eurovision.orf.at) Its Eurovision pages were instead focused on the newly published final running order and coverage plans for the May 16 show. ### How is the running order decided now? Eurovisionworld said the show producers, led this year by Austrian broadcaster ORF, determine the running order after allocation draws held following the two semi-finals. (der.orf.at) The site said that system has been used for the last 12 years. The official Eurovision page does not spell out the method in the same detail on the event listing, but it publishes the final sequence that viewers will see on Saturday night. (tv.orf.at) That page is the contest’s reference list for the order of performances, artist names and songs. ### When and where is the final, and where will results appear? (eurovisionworld.com) Vienna’s Wiener Stadthalle will host the Eurovision 2026 Grand Final on Saturday, May 16, at 9 p.m. CEST, according to both ORF and the official Eurovision event page. BBC programme information for the U.K. broadcast also lists the same start time and carries the published order for Saturday’s show. (eurovision.com) Saturday’s next milestone is the live final itself, with 25 acts competing in the published order from Denmark to Austria. The official Eurovision event page includes the grand final scoreboard and voting data section where the result will be recorded after the show. (eurovision.com)