The 55th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest took place in Oslo, Norway, and consisted of two semi-finals on 25 and 27 May, and the grand final on 29 May 2010. According to the Eurovision rules, each participating country, except the host country and the "Big 5", consisting of , , , and the , were required to qualify from one of the two semi-finals to compete for the grand final, although, the top ten countries from the respective semi-final progress to the grand final. On 7 February 2010, it was announced that Albania would be performing in the second half of the first semi-final of the contest.