World Popular Song Festival, also known as the Yahama Music Festival, or unofficially as the Oriental Eurovision, was an international song contest held from 1970 until 1989.  Benny, Björn, Agnetha & Anni-Frid performed Santa Rosa in the 3rd World Popular Song Festival with the theme "Clap Your Hands".

They performed in the preliminary round only on 17 November 1972 and did not make it to the final. They did get a commemorative medal from the event however.

The programme was aired on NHK, but it has been confirmed that the footage up until 1981 was re-used apart from for special programmes at the time, so they have no footage of 1972 anymore in their library. Some film segments of the winners are available from later years and sometimes rebroadcast on NHK.

Their performance kicked off between 18:30 and 21:30. A second preliminary round took place on Saturday 18 November with the final on Sunday 19 November 1972 which was broadcast on NHK on 2 December 1972 from 16:00-17:30.  Also, the competition was broadcast on radio (FEN) over the three days and on the radio (LF) on 19 November for the final.

The winning composer won 3,000 Dollars, a certificate of merit and a gold medallion. The winning singer won 500 Dollars, a certificate of merit and a gold medallion.

The audio of all the songs were taped by the organizer, Yamaha Music Foundation, and they released some compilation LPs. They also have two pictures in their archives of the ABBA appearance, one of them is known (see gallery).

Other notable participants in the 1972 World Popular Song Festival were Tony (Show Me The Way to Amarillo) Christie from the UK and John (You're The Voice) Farnham fom Australia.

The footage is not available in the NHK Video and Audio Archives.

Lyrics available on the Official ABBA site.

Yamaha Music Foundation (site is mainly in Japanese)
World Popular Song Festival, 1972

Thanks to Robin Andersson and extra special thanks to Jozsef, Yuri and Mayumi Taheri for lots of information.
Date information from Trijnie's ABBA Annual. Super special thanks to Lynette Rawes and Raffem.com for the picture.
Thanks to ABBATALK.