Joan to be the voice of the Netherlands in Baku

The Netherlands have had a bit of a rough recent history in the Eurovision Song Contest but this year they want to change that and employed a completely different format to decide their representative.  

Broadcaster TROS together with world famous producer John de Mol came together to create a show with six outstanding and varied acts. However at the end of the day only one act could win and that was the lady in the native American costume, Joan, with the song You And Me. She will now represent the Netherlands in the second Semi-Final of the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest, which will be held in Baku on the 24th of May. 

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Three duels where the artists pulled out all the stops 

As mentioned, the six acts were split into three duels where one act from each duel progressed to a super final. These duels were (qualifiers in bold):

Duel 1

- Tim - Undercover Lover

- Pearl - I Can Overcome

Duel 2

- Joan - You And Me - WINNER

- Raffaëla - Chocolatte 

Duel 3

- Kim - Children Of The World

- Ivan - Take Me As I Am

The voting was a 50:50 mix of tele voting and expert jury voting. There was also an international jury present in the studio purely in an advisory capacity. It was interesting to see how their "votes" compared to those of the public and expert juries. 

John De Mol to help produce the stage show for Baku

After the show, Eurovision.tv spoke to the creator of Big Brother and one of the biggest TV producers in the World. He told us that he will have a role in helping to prepare the Dutch entry for the stage in the Baku Crystal Hall to make sure that the lighting and effects are just right to help maximise Joan's potential of winning.

He also told us that as far as the format for Nationaal Songfestival goes, he thought it was a big success with the three duels creating maximum suspense throughout the show. He also says that he hopes TROS will reuse the same format in 2013.

Eurovision.tv were in Hilversum to cover the final so watch out for further pictures and videos from this year's edition of Nationaal Songfestival. We spoke to amongst others John de Mol and Sienke (Dutch entry from 2010). We also dominated the winner's press conference with questions to the winner Joan, so make sure you watch out for that soon!