FWIW, I and many other friends went to the Eurovision Song Contest in Baku in 2012, all from different countries, and we were all told different things about what was required, and some embassies/consulates required a whole lot of documentation and others required barely any, so there is zero consistency in requirements from embassy to embassy.

Just pick which consulate/embassy you're going to go to (which it seems you have anyway) and do as they say.

Just thought I'd post this in case anyone looks back at this thread as well!