Eurovision acts finish second rehearsals

Eurovision rehearsal week is where the contest stops being a playlist and starts becoming television. That shift happened in Vienna on Wednesday, May 6, when the first 10 acts from Semi-final 1 finished their second rehearsals and the first public 30-second clips dropped. Those clips matter more than they look — they’re the first real test of camera work, live vocals, and whether a song idea actually survives contact with the stage. ### What actually happened in Vienna? The first half of Semi-final 1 went back into Wiener Stadthalle for second rehearsals: Moldova, Sweden, Croatia, Greece, Portugal, Georgia, Finland, Montenegro, Estonia, and Israel. Second rehearsals are still closed to press in the room, but this is the stage where short public clips get released, and delegations can still make small adjustments after reviewing the run-through. ### Why do second rehearsals matter so much? Because first rehearsals are mostly about proving the package works. Second rehearsals are where the TV version starts to lock in — camera angles, lighting cues, choreography timing, costume reads, all of it. Basically, this is the first moment fans can compare songs as performances instead of as studio tracks and national-final memories. ### Who looks strongest right now? Finland is still the obvious headline. Linda Lampenius and Pete Parkkonen’s “Liekinheitin” lead the betting market with an estimated 32% win chance, and Finland also won the annual OGAE fan-club poll with votes from 3,846 members across 43 clubs. That does not guarantee anything — fan polls and betting odds miss all the time — but when both point the same way, people pay attention. ### Why is Finland getting extra buzz? Partly because the act already had momentum, but also because there’s a concrete staging hook. Linda Lampenius has been granted permission to play violin live during the live shows, which is unusual in modern Eurovision because instruments are normally mimed over the backing track. That gives Finland something rare — a performance detail that feels genuinely live, not just theatrically live. ### Is this only about Finland? Not at all. The Wednesday batch also included Greece’s Akylas with “Ferto,” Sweden’s Felicia with “My System,” and Israel’s Noam Bettan with “Michelle” — all acts people are watching closely. But the point of these clips is not that they settle the contest. The point is that they start separating songs that sounded promising in March from entries that can actually fill a Eurovision frame in May. ### What happens next? The second half of Semi-final 1 — Belgium, Lithuania, San Marino, Poland, and Serbia — continues second rehearsals on Thursday, May 7. The same day also brings first rehearsals for Italy, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and host country Austria. Semi-final 1 itself is scheduled for Tuesday, May 12. What to take from this? Treat the rehearsal clips like a trailer, not the film. They’re enough to reveal whether a concept is coherent and whether a singer sounds comfortable on the big stage. But they’re still only 30 seconds long. A shaky snippet can hide a strong full package, and a slick snippet can flatter a song that won’t connect over three minutes. ### Bottom line The big change is simple — Eurovision 2026 now has its first real performance evidence. And right now, Finland still looks like the act everyone else has to beat.