Tonight: 70th Sanremo kicks off in Italy

Today the 70th edition of the iconic Italian music festival will kick off at Sanremo’s Ariston Theatre. As in previous editions, the winner will get the right to represent Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest.

Twenty-four candidates will compete for five nights to get the big trophy and the chance to step on the Eurovision stage. Artistic and Event Director Amadeus chose the songs without knowing the identity of the singer(s) thinking of tracks that could be successful on Spotify. So, among the participants, there are some rappers, which are very popular in Italy. Former Italian entrants of 2011 and 2017 are also back in the race with the following compositions:

• Morgan e BUGO – “Sincero”
• Alberto Urso – “Il sole a est”
• Tiziana Tosca Donati – “Ho amato tutto”
• Rita Pavone – Small Wonder – “Niente (Resilienza 74)”
• Piero Pelù – “Gigante”
• Elodie – “Andromeda”
• Francesco Sàrcina e Le Vibrazioni – “Dov’è”
• Riki – “Lo sappiamo entrambi”
• Rancore – “Eden”
• Elettra Miura Lamborghini – “Musica (E il resto scompare)”
• Marco Masini – “Il confronto”
• Levante – “Tiki Bom Bom”
• Achille Lauro – “Me ne frego”
• Paolo Jannacci – “Voglio parlarti adesso”
• Michele Zarrillo – “Nell’estasi o nel fango”
• Raphael Gualazzi official – “Carioca”
• Giordana Angi – “Come mia madre”
• Diodato – “Fai rumore”
• Anastasio – “Rosso di rabbia”
• Enrico Nigiotti – “Baciami adesso“
• Irene Grandi – “Finalmente io“
• Pinguini tattici nucleari – “Ringo Starr”
• Francesco Gabbani – “Viceversa“
• Junior Cally – “No grazie”

THE SHOW FORMAT

The format of Sanremo 2020 has undergone a few changes. Most notably, a jury made up of all the members of the orchestra will have a say on the third show, while they’re also completely getting rid of the expert jury.

• First and second nights (February 4th and 5th):
  • The 24 performers will make their first appearance, 12 per show. The voting for this show is fully up to the demoscopic jury (a jury selected by RAI that represents the Italian population).
  • The 8 artists from the youth category will also perform for the first time. The demoscopic jury will decide which four of them will advance to the next show.
• Third night (February 6th):
  • The 24 artists will cover memorable songs from Sanremo’s past commemorating the 70th anniversary of the competition. The orchestra will vote this time.
  • The 4 qualified youth artists will perform their entries once again. A combination of the televote, the press jury and the demoscopic jury will decide the two finalists.
• Fourth night (February 7th):
  • The 24 artists will perform their entries again. While the press jury, made up of radio, TV and web journalists, will decide the results of the show.
  • The 2 youth artists that had made it to the final will perform their entries. Once again, the televote and the two panels will decide the winner of the Youth category.
• Final night (February 8th):
  • The 24 artists will perform their entries for the last time. A combination of the televote (34%), the press jury (33%) and the demoscopic jury (33%) will decide the outcome. As usual, the three superfinalists will be decided after adding up the votes of all shows. 
  • At the superfinal, the winner of Sanremo 2020 will be decided through the same voting combination, but, this time, the points will be reset. So, only the points of the superfinal will help choose the final winning entry. 

allocation of shows 1 and 2

All 24 candidates will premiere their songs during the first two nights, 12 per show. You can find the allocation for nights 1 and 2 below:

Night 1 (February 4th)

• Achille Lauro
• Anastasio
• Bugo e Morgan
• Diodato
• Elodie
• Irene Grandi
• Raphael Gualazzi
• Marco Masini
• Rita Pavone
• Riki
• Le Vibrazioni
• Alberto Urso

Night 2 (February 5th)

• Giordana Angi
• Francesco Gabbani
• Paolo Jannacci
• Junior Cally
• Elettra Lamborghini
• Levante
• Enrico Nigiotti
• Piero Pelù
• Pinguini Tattici Nucleari
• Rancore
• Tosca
• Michele Zarrillo

Don’t miss the first Sanremo 2020 show at 20.40 CET on our ESCplus Multi-Window live feed.