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Outstanding Eurovision key handing ceremony takes place at â€œButa Palaceâ€ - PHOTOSESSION

Outstanding Eurovision key handing ceremony takes place at â€œButa Palaceâ€ - <font color=red>PHOTOSESSION</font>

25 January 2012 20:58 (UTC +04:00)

At the ceremony, the first draw ceremony was held for the semi finals of Eurovision-2012 to be held on May 22, 24 May, APA reports.

Jan Ola Sand, Executive Supervisor of Eurovision song Contest noted that the big five-Germany, France, UK, Italy and Spain as well as the last years winner Azerbaijan will participate at the final directly on May 26.

Azerbaijan, Spain, Italy will vote at the first semifinal and UK, France and Germany at the second. At the first semifinal on May 22, 18 countries will compete but at the second semi final the competing countiesâ€™ number will reach 19 on May 24

On May 22, at the first semifinal will compete Montenegro, Iceland, Romania, Albania, Belgium, Latvia, Switzerland, Finland, Greece, Moldova, Cyprus, Austria, Denmark, Russia, San Marino, Israel, Ireland and Hungary, on May 24 finalists will be chosen among, Serbia, Nederland, Portugal, Macedonia , Belarus, Malta, Ukraine, Armenia, Bulgaria, Sweden, Georgia, Slovenia, Estonia, Turkey, Slovakia, Croatia, Norway, Lithuania, Bosnia and Herzegovina for the final.

Dusseldorf`s Lord Major Drik Elbers handed over the symbolic key to the Eurovision Song Contest to Baku Mayor Hajibala Abutalibov and Baku officially took over the Eurovision 2012 hosting.

Elbers expressed confidence the contest would be successful.
Abutalibov congratulated the Azerbaijani people on the occasion, and stressed the importance of the contest.
The Baku Mayor said all preparatory work for the Eurovision-2012 contest was being carried out under the control of the Head of the State.
The ceremony brings together MPs, representatives of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and diplomatic corps, foreign guests and cultural workers.

The logo and slogan of the Eurovision-2012 also were presented at the ceremony.

If the 2011 contest took place under the slogan Feel your heart beat!, Baku 2012 will go into the history books under the motto Light your fire!

Azerbaijan has been known as the Land Of Fire for a while now and the symbol of fire and flames is used extensively across the country. The people of Azerbaijan also take great pride in this association with fire.

"Since the dawn of time, mankind has come together around fire to communicate through the telling of stories, song and dance. The Eurovision Song Contest is where people come together to celebrate and communicate through song and dance," the creators explained the idea behind the theme art.

All of that can be seen visually in the theme art of the 2012 edition of Europeâ€™s favourite TV show. By the way, if you look at the main symbol closely, you can see much more in it, than youâ€™d expect at first glance. See for yourself below!

Since 2004, the Eurovision Song Contest has a generic logo where in the heart of it the flag of the host country is displayed. However, every year the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) invites the Host Broadcaster to create the visual identity to support the logo. The visual side of this yearâ€™s contest was designed by London-based branding company Turquoise.
At the concert, the stars of the Eurovision performed their popular songs.

Among them were Azerbaijani winners of Eurovisoon Song Contest 2011 in DÃ¼sseldorf Eldar Gasimov and Nigar Jamal, Lena Mayer, Alexander Ribak, Ruslana, Aysel Teymurzadeh, Safure Alizadeh. All of them performed the song performed at the Eurovision stage.

Ruslana noted that she is proud of Azerbaijanâ€™s hosting the contest. â€œThis is not dream anymore, Am very happy that Azerbaijan won this contest and we are part of this dream. Azerbaijanâ€™s hosting contest makes me happy and I am sure you will manage the contest in high levelâ€

At the ceremony Alim Gasimov delighted the guests performing national song of Azerbaijan â€œSari Gelin â€(Blonde Bride). National dances also were performed at the concert.