Austria in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017

On 19 December 2016, ORF announced that they had internally selected Nathan Trent to represent Austria in Kyiv.[8] Before the announcement of Nathan Trent as Austrian representative, ska band Russkaja was rumoured to have been selected by the broadcaster.[9] Trent was among artists nominated by the ORF Eurovision Song Contest Team, which collaborated with music experts Eberhard Forcher who worked on the selection of artists for the 2016 Austrian national final, and Christof Straub who co-wrote the 2016 Austrian entry "Loin d'ici", to submit a song after the release of his first single "Like It Is", and was also among the 33 artists shortlisted to compete in the 2017 German national final.

ORF confirmed in December 2016 that the song to be performed by Trent at the contest would also be chosen internally and presented to the public in February 2017.[10] On 26 February 2017, the song "Running on Air" written by Nathan Trent himself together with Bernhard Penzias was announced as the Austrian entry for the contest. The presentation of the song took place on 28 February 2017 during the radio show Ö3-Wecker, aired on Ö3.[11]

Nathan Trent made several appearances across Europe to specifically promote "Running on Air" as the Austrian Eurovision entry. On 2 April, Trent performed during the London Eurovision Party which was held at the Café de Paris venue in London, United Kingdom and hosted by Nicki French. Between 3 and 6 April, Trent took part in promotional activities in Tel Aviv, Israel and performed during the Israel Calling event held at the Ha'teatron venue.[12][13] On 8 April, Trent performed during the Eurovision in Concert event which was held at the Melkweg venue in Amsterdam, Netherlands and hosted by Cornald Maas and Selma Björnsdóttir.[14] On 15 April, Trent performed during the Eurovision Spain Pre-Party, which was held at the Sala La Riviera venue in Madrid, Spain.[15]

Nathan Trent took part in technical rehearsals on 2 April and 5 May, followed by dress rehearsals on 10 and 11 May.[19] This included the jury show on 10 May where the professional juries of each country watched and voted on the competing entries.[20] The Austrian performance featured Nathan Trent dressed in white with silver boots. At the beginning of the song, he was sitting on a large silver crescent moon, made from the same material as a disco ball. The LED screens displayed large clouds of smoke — purple, white, blue and orange when Trent jumped from his moon. Twelve bright yellow lights beamed from the back of the stage. He walked to the front of the stage and after a while he returns to his moon. The four backing singers appeared on stage at the end of the song and they were also dressed in white like Nathan Trent.[21] The four backing singers consisted of Vincent Bueno, Helena Dema and Florian Sebastian Fitz, along with Ukrainian Art Demur, who was one of the stand-in performers during the initial technical rehearsals.[22]

At the end of the show, Austria was announced as having finished in the top 10 and subsequently qualifying for the grand final.[23] It was later revealed that Austria placed seventh in the semi-final, receiving a total of 147 points: 32 points from the televoting and 115 points from the juries.[24]

Shortly after the second semi-final, a winners' press conference was held for the ten qualifying countries. As part of this press conference, the qualifying artists took part in a draw to determine which half of the grand final they would subsequently participate in. This draw was done in the reverse order the countries appeared in the semi-final running order. Austria was drawn to compete in the first half. Following this draw, the shows' producers decided upon the running order of the final, as they had done for the semi-finals. Austria was subsequently placed to perform in position 4, following the entry from Belarus and before the entry from Armenia.[25]

The following members comprised the Austrian jury:[28]

• Andreas Zahradnik (jury chairperson) – journalist
• Christian Ude – host, editor, scriptwriter, journalist
• Eleonora Vardanian (Elly V) – singer
• Sasha Saedi – labelhead domestic Austria, artist, repertoire manager
• Zoë Straub – singer, songwriter, actress, represented Austria in the 2016 contest

The fifth member of the jury, Sasha Saedi, was confirmed on 9 May 2017.[29]

Detailed voting results from Austria (Semi-final 2)[26]

Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		C. Ude	A. Zahradnik	Elly V	S. Saedi	Z. Straub	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Serbia	12	11	15	15	7	13		5	6
02	Austria
03	Macedonia	16	17	16	16	17	17		12
04	Malta	10	3	13	8	2	5	6	16
05	Romania	8	5	17	17	14	14		4	7
06	Netherlands	1	10	7	2	1	3	8	7	4
07	Hungary	13	4	6	6	10	8	3	1	12
08	Denmark	14	8	9	5	12	11		15
09	Ireland	3	2	2	9	4	2	10	8	3
10	San Marino	15	14	11	11	16	16		14
11	Croatia	6	9	10	10	11	10	1	2	10
12	Norway	11	15	3	3	5	6	5	11
13	Switzerland	5	7	5	13	8	7	4	9	2
14	Belarus	7	13	4	4	6	4	7	10	1
15	Bulgaria	4	1	1	1	3	1	12	3	8
16	Lithuania	17	16	8	12	13	15		17
17	Estonia	2	6	14	14	9	9	2	13
18	Israel	9	12	12	7	15	12		6	5

Detailed voting results from Austria (Final)[27]

Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		C. Ude	A. Zahradnik	Elly V	S. Saedi	Z. Straub	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Israel	21	24	24	23	25	25		17
02	Poland	6	12	19	15	16	12		9	2
03	Belarus	16	7	3	5	4	4	7	19
04	Austria
05	Armenia	19	25	12	12	13	19		21
06	Netherlands	1	3	5	3	3	1	12	11
07	Moldova	20	22	8	8	12	14		8	3
08	Hungary	17	4	6	9	11	6	5	6	5
09	Italy	2	2	11	4	18	5	6	5	6
10	Denmark	24	21	22	13	23	23		24
11	Portugal	3	23	1	1	1	3	8	1	12
12	Azerbaijan	15	20	9	20	20	21		23
13	Croatia	7	6	18	19	21	15		7	4
14	Australia	12	19	7	11	9	11		18
15	Greece	14	18	21	10	19	20		22
16	Spain	25	17	23	24	24	24		25
17	Norway	18	16	4	7	7	8	3	13
18	United Kingdom	9	8	14	16	8	10	1	16
19	Cyprus	22	15	20	18	22	22		15
20	Romania	8	5	25	17	17	16		2	10
21	Germany	11	10	17	22	14	17		14
22	Ukraine	23	14	13	14	15	18		20
23	Belgium	4	9	10	25	5	9	2	3	8
24	Sweden	10	11	15	2	10	7	4	10	1
25	Bulgaria	5	1	2	6	2	2	10	4	7
26	France	13	13	16	21	6	13		12