The Eurovision Song Contest 2012 was the 57th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It consisted of two semi-finals on 22 and 24 May and a final on 26 May 2012, held at the Baku Crystal Hall in Baku, Azerbaijan, and presented by Leyla Aliyeva, Nargiz Birk-Petersen, and Eldar Gasimov. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster İctimai Television (İTV), which staged the event after winning the for with the song "Running Scared" by Gasimov himself and Nigar Jamal as Ell and Nikki. It was the first time the contest was hosted in Azerbaijanonly four years after the country made its debut.
Broadcasters from forty-two countries participated in the contest. returned to the contest for the first time since . Meanwhile, withdrew due to security concerns in relation to the ongoing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan, while did not participate due to financial concerns.
The winner was with the song "Euphoria", performed by Loreen and written by Thomas G:son and Peter Boström. The song won both the jury vote and televote and received 372 points out of a maximum of 492. , , , and rounded out the top five, with Albania achieving their best result to date. Out of the "Big Five" countries, Germany, Italy and Spain all managed to rank within the top 10, finishing eighth, ninth and tenth, respectively.
The lead-up to the contest was met with political concerns and protests surrounding the host country, including its human rights record and allegations by advocacy groups that Baku was carrying out forced evictions in the construction of the contest's venue. Location
Azerbaijani broadcaster İctimai Television (İTV) got the right to host the 2012 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest after winning the with the song "Running Scared" performed by Ell and Nikki. Baku, the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region, was named the host city for the contest, with the venue being the Baku Crystal Hall, built a few months prior to the contest on the city's coastline.
Shortly after Azerbaijan's victory at the 2011 edition, officials announced that a new 23,000-seat concert venue was to be built near National Flag Square in Baku, as a potential venue for the event. Three days later, other venue options were revealed by organisers, such as the 37,000-seat Tofiq Bahramov Stadium and the Heydar Aliyev Sports and Exhibition Complex. On 2 August 2011, Alpine Bau Deutschland AG was awarded the contract to construct the Baku Crystal Hall. Preparations for construction began in the area shortly after the announcement. Even though the full cost of the contract was not named, the government allocated 6 million AZN for the construction of the venue.
On 8 September 2011, Azad Azerbaijan TV (ATV) reported that Baku Crystal Hall would be the venue of the contest, but no formal confirmation was made at the time neither by İTV nor the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). On 31 October 2011, Ismayil Omarov, the director general of İTV announced that a decision on the venue choice would be taken by the steering committee in January 2012. On 25 January 2012, it was confirmed that the Baku Crystal Hall would be the venue of the contest. Even though the venue had an extended capacity of 23,000 people, only 16,000 people were able to attend each show. Tickets for the contest became available online for purchase on 28 February 2012.
Participants
On 17 January 2012, the EBU initially announced that forty-three countries would take part in the 2012 contest. The 57th edition saw the return of Montenegro, who was last represented by Andrea Demirović in 2009. Poland decided not to participate, due to the financial burden of the UEFA Euro 2012 (which Poland co-hosted with Ukraine) and the 2012 Summer Olympics. Armenia, who had originally planned to participate, later withdrew their application due to security concerns related to the ongoing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan, subsequently reducing the number of participating countries to 42.
Four artists returned in this year's contest. Kaliopi had intended to participate for with the song "Samo ti", which placed in 26th position in the pre-qualifying round. She would then go on to represent . Jónsi had represented with the song "Heaven", which placed 19th. Željko Joksimović for Serbia, had represented with the song "Lane moje" which placed second, and had co-hosted the with Jovana Janković. Jedward had represented , and returned for a second consecutive year, after their 8th-place finish with the song "Lipstick". In addition, Martina Majerle, who represented , returned as a backing vocalist for Slovenia.
Lys Assia, who won the first Eurovision for , entered the song "", written by Ralph Siegel and Jean Paul Cara, into the . The song, however, only came eighth in a closely fought national selection. Assia attended the event in Baku as a guest of honour.
+ Eurovision Song Contest 2012 participants Country Broadcaster Artist Song Language Songwriter(s) RTSH Rona Nishliu "" Albanian ORF Trackshittaz "" German İTV Sabina Babayeva "When the Music Dies" English BTRC Litesound "We Are the Heroes" English VRT Iris "Would You?" English BHRT Maya Sar "" Bosnian Maja Sarihodžić BNT Sofi Marinova "Love Unlimited" Bulgarian, Greek HRT Nina Badrić "" Croatian Nina Badrić CyBC Ivi Adamou "La La Love" English DR Soluna Samay "Should've Known Better" English ERR Ott Lepland "" Estonian Yle Pernilla "" Swedish Jonas Karlsson Anggun "Echo (You and I)" French, English GPB Anri Jokhadze "I'm a Joker" English, Georgian NDR Roman Lob "Standing Still" English ERT Eleftheria Eleftheriou "Aphrodisiac" English MTVA Compact Disco "Sound of Our Hearts" English RÚV Greta Salóme and Jónsi "Never Forget" English Greta Salóme RTÉ Jedward "Waterline" English IBA Izabo "Time" English, Hebrew RAI Nina Zilli "L'amore è femmina (Out of Love)" English, Italian LTV Anmary "Beautiful Song" English LRT Donny Montell "Love Is Blind" English MRT Kaliopi "" () Macedonian PBS Kurt Calleja "This Is the Night" English TRM Pasha Parfeny "" English RTCG Rambo Amadeus "Euro Neuro" English Rambo Amadeus TROS Joan Franka "You and Me" English NRK Tooji "Stay" English RTP Filipa Sousa "" Portuguese TVR Mandinga "Zaleilah" Spanish, English RTR Buranovskiye Babushki "Party for Everybody" Udmurt, English SMRTV Valentina Monetta "The Social Network Song (Oh Oh – Uh – Oh Oh)" English RTS Željko Joksimović "" () Serbian RTVS Max Jason Mai "Don't Close Your Eyes" English Max Jason Mai RTVSLO Eva Boto "" Slovene RTVE Pastora Soler "" Spanish SVT Loreen "Euphoria" English SRG SSR Sinplus "Unbreakable" English TRT Can Bonomo "Love Me Back" English Can Bonomo NTU Gaitana "Be My Guest" English BBC Engelbert Humperdinck "Love Will Set You Free" English
Languages The Finnish entry, "När jag blundar", sung by Pernilla Karlsson, was only Finland's second entry in Swedish (after "Fri?" by Beat in 1990) and the first entry at all to be sung in Swedish since 1998. Russia's entry, "Party for Everybody", sung by Buranovskiye Babushki, was the first entry ever to be performed in Udmurt. The Georgian entry, "I'm a Joker" was the first Eurovision entry containing the Georgian language while the Bulgarian song "Love Unlimited" had a few words in the Azerbaijani language, both of whom never appeared at the contest before.
Other countries Active EBU members On 7 March 2012, the EBU announced that Armenian broadcaster ARMTV had decided to withdraw despite originally being included in the list of participating countries, after Azerbaijani president had given a speech the previous week calling "Armenians of the world" one of Azerbaijan's "main enemies". Armenia was consequently fined by the EBU and was expected to face further penalties, such as exclusion from participation in future contests if it failed to comply with the EBU requirements. Armenia had been in a continuous state of war with Azerbaijan since the early 1990s due to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Active EBU member broadcasters in , , and confirmed non-participation prior to the announcement of the participants list by the EBU. The and broadcasters did the same, despite previous speculations of a possible return.
Non-EBU member On 26 November 2011, it was reported that two official EBU documents showed that Liechtenstein's only national broadcaster 1FLTV was being granted active EBU membership, sparking speculations of a debut for the nation. However, it was clarified a few days later that these documents contained editing mistakes.
Format
In a meeting of the Eurovision Reference Group on 29 June 2011, it was decided that the televoting system would revert the format used most recently in the 2009 contest, in which the phone and SMS lines opened for a fifteen-minute window after all songs had been performed, instead of opening before the show starts, which was the system used between 2010 and 2011. The results format of each show remained the same with each country's votes being decided on a 50:50 split between televoting and a national jury. Each participating country had their own national jury, which consisted of five professional members of the music industry.
Under the official rules released on 24 November 2011, the number of participants in the grand final was raised to 26, including the host nation, the "Big Five", and the ten qualifiers from each semi-final. This was the second time in the Eurovision Song Contest that 26 countries were in the grand final, the first being the 2003 contest.
Semi-final allocation draw
The draw that determined the semi-final running order was held on 25 January 2012 at the Buta Palace. The participating countries, excluding the automatic finalists (Azerbaijan, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom), were split into six pots, based upon how those countries voted in past contests. From these pots, half (or as close to half as possible) competed in the first semi-final on 22 May 2012. The other half in that particular pot competed in the second semi-final on 24 May 2012. This draw also acted as an approximate running order, in order for the delegations from the countries to know when their rehearsals would commence and determine which semi-final the automatic finalists would be allowed to vote in.
Pot 1 Pot 2 Pot 3 Pot 4 Pot 5 Pot 6
Graphic design
The design of the contest was built around the motto "Light Your Fire!", inspired by the nickname of Azerbaijan itself, "Land of Fire".
Each introductory video postcard began with a shot of the artist and performers, followed with the flag and country name in a handwritten font with a background resembling the yellow, orange and red fire of the 2012 theme art. The postcards consisted of various shots of Azerbaijan, with a caption displaying 'Azerbaijan' and underneath 'Land of ...' (e.g. Land of Abundance; Land of Poetry etc.), which were then followed by the name of a town or geographic feature, showing the landscape and culture of the country. Some postcards focused on the host city of Baku with text changing to 'Baku' and underneath 'City of ...' (e.g. City of Jazz; City of Leisure etc.). The postcards finished with a shot of the Crystal Hall displayed in the colours of the performing country's flag. These postcards acted as a tourism mechanism to present the country to a wider audience.
The artist, song and number graphics as well as tables and voting graphics were kept the same as those used in 2011, with a slight modification to incorporate the 2012 theme art. The lower points (1-7) were highlighted in red squares while the top points (8, 10, 12) were highlighted in orange squares with each square increasing in size in relation to the point value. Both sets of graphics were designed by London brand design agency Turquoise Branding.
Host broadcaster