image: Thomas Hanses (EBU)

Happy Eurovision – the big day has arrived! Tonight the grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest will be held in Kyiv, Ukraine.

We are slowly reaching the climax of another long season. We’ve seen favourites rise, then watched as some of them fell – and now it’s less than half a day until we will know the host country of 2018.

Throughout the last six months, we have encountered some classic national final entries that we are still remembering and voting for in our SongHunt final – don’t forget to vote for your favourite here! – but tonight it’s the successful entries from 26 countries that will finally compete for the Eurovision crown. And we all wonder: Who will hold the trophy at the end of the show?

It’s time for our team’s predictions!

The format is simple: Each of the escgo! team members (Martin, Felix and Shi) has 100 points to distribute across the entries depending on how likely they consider them to be tonight’s winner.

And here’s what they think:

So what do we expect? Our team thinks that Portugal is the most likely winner, with Bulgaria and Italy also having good chances of victory tonight.

In terms of personal preference, incidentally, there is no doubt that the consensus favourite of the escgo! team is Salvador Sobral from Portugal. In that, we agree with the verdict of our chatters in the 2017 ChatVote, which was also won by “Amar pelos dois”. Time will tell whether the rest of Europe (and Australia) is on the same page as us…

What do you think will happen tonight? Do you agree or disagree with our views? Let us know in the comments, on social media or in our chat – and however you watch the show tonight, we hope you have a great Eurovision day, and may the best song win!