Eurovision is an annual pop song contest that has been organized by the European Broadcasting Union since 1956. Each country, through its TV company - a member of the union, can declare one participant - a singer or a whole team - to participate in the competition. Representatives of 42 countries took part in the last competition, and the citizens of these countries were able to vote to determine the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2012.
According to the rules of the European song contest, its finals are held every year in the country whose representative wins in the previous competition. In 2011, in the final voting, the brightest composition "Running Scared" performed by the duet "Ell & Nikki" scored the highest number of points - 221 -. This duet was composed by Eldar Kasimov and Nigar Jamal, who made Azerbaijan the host country for the Eurovision Song Contest 2012.
The capital of the country became the city that hosted the most significant television song contest in Europe, and the organizing committee first chose between the recently reconstructed stadium named after Tofig Bakhramov and the Sports and Exhibition Complex named after Heydar Aliyev as a specific location. However, government support, both in organizational and monetary terms, made it possible to build a unique concert complex for twenty thousand spectators specially for this event.
On the city square of the State Flag, a German company has erected the Crystal Hall, the outer walls of which are made in the form of crystals and made up of thousands of light panels. Computer control and a sophisticated backlighting system allows you to create simply enchanting pictures that are the best fit for a television competition. The “Green Room”, where the participants who have already finished their performances, are awaiting evaluations of their composition, is located in the Baku “Crystal Palace” right in the auditorium, which was not the case in previous finals.
Officially, Baku became the host city of Eurovision on January 25, 2012, after the ceremony of handing over the symbolic key of the competition from the mayor of Dusseldorf, where the previous song competition was held, to the mayor of the capital of Azerbaijan. And the final took place on May 26 and revealed the country where the next year's competition will take place - the winner of Eurovision 2012 was the representative of Sweden Loreen (Lauren Zineb Noka Talhaoui) and her composition Euphoria.
