Semifinal

The semifinal concept, similar to the one used in Eurovision Song Contest, was introduced in NSC 6. It is used to decide one half of the participants in each edition's final, allowing a larger total of nations than what a single competition allows to participate. The participating nations are those that ended up in a low place in the previous final, failed to qualify in the previous final, debuts or returns. A number of nations, usually about half of them, that finishes within a certain top position are qualified to the final.

Voting is done in the exact same way as the final, but the full votes are kept secret until the whole contest is finished. The qualifiers are announced in random order, after which the place and total score of all eliminated nations (aswell as the total score of the lowest qualified country) is revealed.

= Trivia =
 * Apart from pre-semifinal nations, Bokia was the only nation to never participate in a semifinal, finishing within the prequalification limit each time up until NSC 11, which coincided with their withdrawal from the contest.