Netherlands contestant Joost barred from second Eurovision final rehearsal – latest

From zany novelty songs to club bangers and heartfelt ballads, the competition at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest is fierce. We take a look at our favourites

Delegates from 10 countries including Austria, Israel, Estonia, Georgia, Switzerland and the Netherlands managed to qualify in the second semi-final, joining the 10 who made it through on Tuesday 7 May.

They will join the “big five” who are guaranteed a place in the final, including the UK’s Olly Alexander who will perform his song “Dizzy”.

Cork-born, London-based singer Bambie Thug, one of the favourites to win, will sing their electro-metal song “Doomsday Blue”. Ukraine’s duo Alyona Alyona and Jerry Heil are considered strong competition with their moving anthem “Teresa & Maria”.

Elsewhere, current favourite Baby Lasagna will perform his outlandish “Rim Tim Tagi Dim” on behalf of Croatia, whle Finnish entrant Windows95Man will sing his outlandish tune “No Rules!”.

See the full runninng order here:

Good morning, welcome to The Independent’s Eurovision liveblog.

We’re just hours away from the Eurovision 2024 final, but this is undoubtedly a very different Eurovision than we’re used to.

Further protests are set to take place around the Malmo Arena in Sweden today over Israel’s participation amid its war on Gaza, after singer Eden Golan was voted through to the final.

Meanwhile, we still don’t know what’s happening with the Netherlands’ contestant Joost, one of the favourites to win this year’s contest. Yesterday, organisers released a statement announcing that he would not perform in the final dress rehearsal while they investigated an “incident” that took place on Thursday.

While nothing has been confirmed, it seems possible that this is to do with tensions between Joost and the Israel delegation, after he pressed Golan to answer a journalist’s question about whether she was making other contestants feel “unsafe”.

During the conference, Joost was pictured with his country’s flag over his head, at some points completely concealing him from view. It is understood that he did not want to be pictured with Golan.

The final will kick off tonight at 8pm GMT and be broadcast from BBC One and BBC iPlayer.