Europe Music Wave 1

**Europe Music Wave 1**, often referred to as EMW 1, will be the first edition of **The Europe Music Wave Contest**. It will be held in Athens, Greece. It will be the first time Greece has hosted the contest. ERT selected the O.A.C.A. Olympic Indoor Hall in Athens as the venue, whilst Nikos Aliagas and Maria Menounos were chosen as hosts.

## Location

> *​​​​​​For more information, see Athens.*
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**Athens** is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years and its earliest human presence starting somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennium BCE.

Classical Athens was a powerful city-state that emerged in conjunction with the seagoing development of the port of Piraeus, which had been a distinct city prior to its 5th century BCE incorporation with Athens. A centre for the arts, learning and philosophy, home of Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum, it is widely referred to as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy, largely because of its cultural and political impact on the European continent, and in particular the Romans. In modern times, Athens is a large cosmopolitan metropolis and central to economic, financial, industrial, maritime, political and cultural life in Greece. In 2012, Athens was ranked the world's 39th richest city by purchasing power and the 67th most expensive in a UBS study.
Athens is a global city and one of the biggest economic centres in southeastern Europe. It has a large financial sector, and its port Piraeus is both the largest passenger port in Europe, and the second largest in the world. The **Municipality of Athens** (also **City of Athens**) had a population of 664,046 (in 2011) within its administrative limits, and a land area of 38.96 km2(15.04 sq mi). The urban area of Athens (Greater Athens and Greater Piraeus) extends beyond its administrative municipal city limits, with a population of 3,090,508 (in 2011) over an area of 412 km2 (159 sq mi). According to Eurostat in 2011, the functional urban area (FUA) of Athens was the 9th most populous FUA in the European Union (the 6th most populous capital city of the EU), with a population of 3.8 million people. Athens is also the southernmost capital on the European mainland.
The heritage of the classical era is still evident in the city, represented by ancient monuments and works of art, the most famous of all being the Parthenon, considered a key landmark of early Western civilization. The city also retains Roman and Byzantinemonuments, as well as a smaller number of Ottoman monuments. Athens is home to two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Acropolis of Athens and the medieval Daphni Monastery. Landmarks of the modern era, dating back to the establishment of Athens as the capital of the independent Greek state in 1834, include the Hellenic Parliament and the so-called "architectural trilogy of Athens", consisting of the National Library of Greece, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the Academy of Athens. Athens is also home to several museums and cultural institutions, such as the National Archeological Museum, featuring the world's largest collection of ancient Greek antiquities, the Acropolis Museum, the Museum of Cycladic Art, the Benaki Museum and the Byzantine and Christian Museum. Athens was the host city of the first modern-day Olympic Games in 1896, and 108 years later it welcomed home the 2004 Summer Olympics, making it one of only a handful of cities to have hosted the Olympics more than once.

## Format

### Semi Final allocation draw

The draw to determine the allocation of the participating countries into their respective semi-finals took place on 20th February 2018. The draw decided in which half of the respective semi-finals each country would perform, with the exact running order determined by the producers of the show at a later date. Twenty-one countries would participate both in the first and the second semi final. From each semi-final, ten countries would join the final, where a total of twenty countries would participate.

The forty-two semi-finalists were allocated into six pots, based on their geographical place and cultural similarities. Drawing from different pots helps in reducing the chance of so-called neighbour voting and increasing suspense in the semi-finals. Each time a country was drawn from the pot, its semi-final and half of the semi-final was determined.

The six pots were the following:

## Results

### Semi Final 1

Twenty-one countries participate in the first semi final. The 10 highlighted countries are the ones who qualify to the Grand Final.

### Semi Final 2

Twenty-one countries participate in the second semi final. The 10 highlighted countries are the ones who qualify to the Grand Final.