Rybak won the 54th Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow, Russia, with a record 387 points, singing "Fairytale", a song inspired by Norwegian folk music. The song was composed and written by Rybak and was performed with the modern folk dance company Frikar. The song received good reviews with a score of 6 out of 6 in the Norwegian newspaper "Dagbladet", and, in an "ESCtoday" poll, he scored 71.3%, making him the favourite to get into the final.