Getter Jaani Wins Estonia's Eurovision Final
Getter Jaani has beat out nearest rival Outloudz to take the top spot in the Eesti Laul, the national competition that determines Estonia's Eurovision Song Contest entry.
In the competition's final round, held in a downtown Tallinn concert hall on February 26, the two contenders scored the highest marks in a 50-50 combination of jury and televoting. The two then faced each other in a last round of televoting, which ended with Estonian viewers picking Jaani's high-energy track "Rockefeller Street" to represent Estonia in Düsseldorf this May.
The song recieved 62 percent of the over 45,000 votes cast in the last televoting round.
Local interest in the event was high - over 1,500 fans paid the 20 euro ticket price to attend the show, prompting the hall's management to put additional upper balcony seats on sale in the hours before the contest started.
As with the two semifinals, the event was hosted by Lenna Kuurmaa and Piret Järvis. Both are members of Vanilla Ninja, the Estonian all-girl rock band that represented Switzerland at the 2005 Eurovision Song Contest in Kiev. Comic actor Ott Sepp joined them in hosting the final.
The public concert was part of this year's newly-expanded Eesti Laul, which Estonian Television widened to include two semifinal rounds.
