It took place in Baku, Azerbaijan, following the country's victory at the 2011 contest with the song "Running Scared" by Ell and Nikki.

The winner was Sweden with the song "Euphoria", performed by Loreen and written by Thomas G:son and Peter Boström.

Out of the "Big Five" countries, Germany, Italy and Spain all managed to rank within the top 10, finishing eighth, ninth and tenth, respectively.

[5][6] 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.

[9] 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 by the EBU.

On 31 October 2011, Ismayil Omarov, the director general of Azerbaijani national broadcaster İctimai Television announced that a decision on the venue choice would be taken by the steering committee in January 2012.

Lys Assia, who won the first Eurovison for Switzerland in 1956, entered the song "C'était ma vie", written by Ralph Siegel and Jean Paul Cara, into the 2012 Swiss national selection.

[49] 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.

[55] 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.

[60][61] Deputy Minister of Communication and Information Technology of Azerbaijan, Iltimas Mammadov, stated that telecom networks were ready to host the event.

[52] The EBU allowed the Albanian broadcaster Radio Televizioni Shqiptar (RTSH) to defer transmission and only use jury votes due to the Qafa e Vishës bus accident.

[69] The EBU and PwC audit company checked and verified the individual jury and televoting results, which were combined to create the overall national vote for the contests.

Azerbaijan's large investment in hosting the Eurovision contest was widely discussed in Western media as an attempt to "mitigate misgivings about its poor democracy and human rights record".

[140][141] Elnur Majidli, an activist imprisoned during the Arab Spring-inspired 2011 Azerbaijani protests, was released in an apparent effort to soften Azerbaijan's image ahead of the contest, but many political prisoners remained.

[141] Human Rights Watch reported a "violent crackdown on protesters" on the eve of the contest,[142] and Amnesty International condemned the "stern crackdown of freedom of expression, dissent, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), critical journalists, in fact anyone who criticised the Aliyev regime too strongly" that continued up to the contest.

[144] The contest's eventual winner Loreen met local human rights activists during the event weeks, the only entrant to do so.

"[143] An Azerbaijan government spokesman criticized her in response, saying that the contest should not "be politicised" and requested the EBU prevented further meetings of a similar nature.

[140] Activists expressed fears that they would face a crackdown when the international spotlight left Azerbaijan again at the end of the contest.

Ali Hasanov, head of the public and political issues department in Azerbaijani president's administration, said that gay parade claims were untrue, and advised Iran not to meddle in Azerbaijan's internal affairs.

[155] On 22 August, The Daily Telegraph reported that according to Western intelligence services, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei personally gave orders to the elite Quds Force unit to launch terrorist attacks against the West and its allies, including Azerbaijan during the contest.

The Marcel Bezençon Awards, organised since 2002 by Sweden's then-Head of Delegation and 1992 representative Christer Björkman, and 1984 winner Richard Herrey, honours songs in the contest's final.

After all votes were cast, the top-ranked entry in the 2012 poll was also the winner of the contest, "Euphoria" performed by Loreen; the top five results are shown below.

[162][163] Eurovision Song Contest: Baku 2012 was a compilation album put together by the European Broadcasting Union, and released by Universal Music Group on 4 May 2012.

The album featured all 42 songs that entered in the 2012 contest, including the semi-finalists that failed to qualify into the grand final.