Equal opportunities for all!

Host Broadcaster YLE adopted the True Fantasy as the theme for this year's contest. The Finnish design agency Dog Design won a competition to design the visual theme of the contest, which incorporated colourful, kaleidoscopic patterns. The high-tech stage was constructed in the shape of a kantele, a traditional Finnish instrument. The contest's Presenting Partner was TeliaSonera, International Presenting Partners were Nobel Biocare and the European Year of Equal Opportunities for All.

The Final opened with Lordi, the monster rock band that brought Finland its first ever Eurovision Song Contest history the year before. Along with Jaana Pelkonen and Mikko Leppilampi, Krisse Salminen co-hosted the show from the green room and the Senate Square. Star guest to open the voting was Santa Clause, who came from northern Finland for this special occasion.

The outcome of the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest caused commotion in Western Europe, where audience and media critisized the credibility of the results. The results were even brought up in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Swedish paper Expressen wrote about feeling "shame" over the reactions in many Western European countries, and claimed that "the Eurovision Song Contest had never been better" and calling the Serbian winner a "worthy, historic winner."

About the winner

Serbia, participating as an independent country for the first time, won the contest, closely followed by respectively Ukraine and Russia. In 2000, 2003 and 2006, Russia was also close to victory, but so far the country has not been so lucky as Ukraine, winner of the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest.

Facts & figures

• It was the first time that the Eurovision Song Contest was produced and broadcast in High Definition. British broadcaster BBC and Swedish broadcaster SVT aired the contest in HD-quality on their respective HD channel;
• Almost 9 milion votes were cast all over Europe, either by telephone or SMS.