Eurovision Song Contest 2002

Location

Tallinn is the capital and largest city of Estonia. It is situated on the northern coast of the country, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, 80 km south of Helsinki in Finland. Tallinn's Old Town is one of the best preserved and intact medieval cities in Europe and is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Venue

Early in the proceedings, media outlets had begun speculating whether Eesti Televisioon (ETV) would be able to host the contest, citing a lack of a suitable venue and budgetary concerns. Due to this, Maltese broadcaster Public Broadcasting Services (PBS) and Dutch broadcaster Nederlandse Omroep Stichting (NOS) both expressed interest in hosting in the event in respective countries instead of Estonia. However, worries were put to rest when a combination of fundraising activities and the Estonian Government enabled them to host the event.

On 19 June 2001, it was announced that Estonia would still host the 2002 contest. The Saku Suurhall was ultimately chosen as the venue for the contest. It is the largest indoor arena in Estonia, built in 2001 and holds up to 10,000 people. It is named after the Estonian brewery and soft drink company Saku.

Participants

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) had originally set the total number of participants to 22, but when it increased that number to 24, it granted and , which had finished 16th and 17th in , the opportunity to enter. Portuguese broadcaster Radiotelevisão Portuguesa (RTP) declined to enter the contest due to internal problems. This allowed eventual winner , who finished 18th in 2001, to enter. Despite finishing in joint 18th place with the Netherlands in 2001, tiebreaking rules put Latvia higher due to receiving more sets of 8 points.

Broadcasters from a total of 24 countries competed in the 2002 contest, which included the 16 top placing countries from the previous year's contest and Latvia, alongside the seven returning countries, Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, Macedonia, Romania, and Switzerland, which had been relegated from competing in the 2001 contest. These seven countries replaced the bottom 5 countries from the 2001 contest - Iceland, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, and Poland, all of which were relegated from taking part in this year's contest, as well as Portugal, who decided not to compete. The draw for the running order took place on 9 November 2001.

Several of the performing artists had previously competed in past editions. Constantinos Christoforou, a member of One, had represented ; while Philippos Constantinos, another member of the band, had provided backing vocals for . , a member of representing Belgium, had provided backing vocals for the , , , and ; while , another member of the band, had also provided backing vocals for the Netherlands in 1996. Sahlene representing Estonia, had provided backing vocals for and . Monica Anghel had represented , but failed to progress from the qualifying round. In addition, Christina Argyri, who represented as part of , and , who represented with , provided backing vocals for the same country.

Format

For the first time, a slogan (or theme) was implemented. This year's theme was called 'A Modern Fairytale', which was evident in the postcards shown between the songs, which showed classic fairytales ending in modern Estonian situations.

The postcards continued with the opening theme of "A Modern Fairytale" taking well known fairy tales and translating them into Estonian life through short films, with a moral at the end of each one of them.

Contest overview

The contest was held on 25 May 2002 at 22:00 EEST (21:00 CEST) and was won by Latvia. The table below outlines the participating countries, the order in which they performed, the competing artists and songs, and the results of the voting.

Latvia won with 176 points. Malta came second with 164 points, with Estonia, United Kingdom, France, Cyprus, Spain, Sweden, Romania and Russia completing the top ten. Finland, Germany, Switzerland, Lithuania and Denmark occupied the bottom five positions.

Spokespersons

Each participating broadcaster appointed a spokesperson who was responsible for announcing, in English or French, the votes for its respective country.

1. CyprusMelani Steliou
2. United KingdomColin Berry
3. Austria
4. Greece
5. SpainAnne Igartiburu
6. CroatiaDuško Ćurlić
7. RussiaArina Sharapova
8. EstoniaIlomai Küttim "Elektra"
9. North MacedoniaBiljana Debarlieva
10. Israel
11. SwitzerlandDiana Jörg
12. SwedenKristin Kaspersen
13. FinlandMarion Rung
14. DenmarkSigne Svendsen
15. Bosnia and HerzegovinaSegmedina Srna
16. Belgium
17. FranceMarie Myriam
18. GermanyAxel Bulthaupt
19. TurkeyMeltem Ersan Yazgan
20. MaltaYvette Portelli
21. RomaniaLeonard Miron
22. SloveniaNuša Derenda
23. Latvia
24. LithuaniaLoreta Tarozaitė

Detailed voting results

According to the EBU rules, every broadcaster was free to make a choice between the full televoting system and the mixed 50-50 system. In exceptional circumstances, where televoting was not possible at all, only a jury was used. In the EBU's rules for the 2002 contest, it was stated; In the televoting, households shall not be permitted to vote more than three times.

At this contest (and the following one) the broadcaster decided to reverse the song recaps - starting instead with the last performed song (24) and finishing with the first performed song (1). This was due to the apparent preference within public vote for songs in the later part of the running order in comparison to the songs nearer to the start.

12 points

Below is a summary of all 12 points in the final:

Allegation of vote swapping

This year saw allegations that the juries in certain countries were guilty of swapping votes among each other. According to the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet, The French Head of Delegation allegedly said that members of the Cypriot delegation had approached him to swap votes. In addition to Cyprus, allegations were also made toward Greece, Russia, Macedonia, Malta and Romania.

Broadcasts

Each participating broadcaster was required to relay live and in full the contest via television. Non-participating EBU member broadcasters were also able to relay the contest as "passive participants"; any passive countries wishing to participate in the following year's event were also required to provide a live broadcast of the contest or a deferred broadcast within 24 hours. Broadcasters were able to send commentators to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language and to relay information about the artists and songs to their viewers. Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators, are shown in the tables below.

Marcel Bezençon Awards

The Marcel Bezençon Awards, a series of awards held concurrently to the main contest, honour and celebrate the participants of the final of that year's Eurovision Song Contest. Named after one of the people influential in the creation of the contest, and created by two former Swedish Eurovision participants, Christer Björkman and Eurovision winner Richard Herrey, the inaugural awards were presented as part of this year's event. Three awards were presented in 2002, with the winner of each award determined by the collective votes of a different group of individuals:

• The Press Award for the best competing song, as determined by the accredited press and media, was awarded to the , "Il faut du temps" performed by Sandrine François
• The Artistic Award for the best artistic performance, as determined by previous Eurovision winners, was awarded to the , "Never Let It Go" performed by Afro-dite
• The Fan Award, as determined by members of the international Eurovision fan club OGAE, was awarded to the , "Addicted to You" performed by Laura Voutilainen

The winners each received a hand-blown glass trophy designed by Karin Hammar and created at the , which were handed out backstage prior to the contest proper.

Official album

Eurovision Song Contest: Tallinn 2002 (also known as Eurovision Song Contest: Estonia 2002) was the official compilation album of the 2002 contest, put together by the European Broadcasting Union and released by Ariola Records on 18 May 2002. The album featured all 24 songs that entered in the 2002 contest.

Charts

Notes

References

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