The 75th edition of the illustrious Sanremo Music Festival begins in just under 24 hours. For anyone new to the premier Italian Music Festival - it runs over five days with around five hours per show with buckets of "fan lore" and history to wade through.
Since the 1977 Sanremo has been hosted at the iconic and historic Teatro Ariston (Ariston Theatre) - a significant cultural hub for the Mediterranean nation.
Notably, the winner of Sanremo is given the opportunity to represent Italy at Eurovision - however, if the winner declines it is up to Italian broadcaster Radiotelevisione italiana (RAI) to choose another participant from Sanremo to compete at Eurovision.
In 2016, Sanremo winner Stadio forwent the opportunity with runner-up Francesca Michielin selected to participate instead.
Allora, here is a crash course in the 2025 contest - from participants, hosts, format and everything in between:
Hosts:
With sadness the wonderful, stupendous and utterly fantastic Amadeus hung up his boots on being artist director and host of Sanremo at the end of the 2024 festival. His departure left big shoes to fill with Carlo Conti up for the challenge.
Carlo is no stranger to the festival having held the title of host and artistic director for the 2015-17 editions.
Hailing from Florence, the capital of Tuscany, he found his passion as a radio present and DJ before making his Italian television debut in 1985. He will helm the contest in 2026 as well.
He will be joined by an army of Italian A-list co-hosts Antonella Clerici and Gerry Scotti (first night), Bianca Balti, Cristiano Malgioglio and Nino Frassica (second night), Miriam Leone, Elettra Lamborghini and Katia Follesa (third night), Mahmood and Geppi Cucciari (fourth night) and Alessia Marcuzzi and Alessandro Cattelan (final night).
Notable co-hosts are Mahmood (Italian Eurovision representative 2019 & 2022) and Alessandro Cattelan who hosted Eurovision 2022 alongside Laura Pausini and Mika.
How to watch Sanremo 2025:
All nights of Sanremo and the individual performances are available to stream online internationally with Italian Broadcaster RAIÂ - link here.
Performances and highlights are also uploaded to their official YouTube channel. Enjoy them while you can as they are deleted a few weeks after the contest - much the the ire of Eurofans across the globe!
Nightly Schedule:
First Night - Wednesday (6:40am AEDT)
All 29 of the artists will perform their entries for the first time
Voting will be televote (34%), combined press jury (33%) and radio jury (33%)
A provisional ranking of the Top 5 acts will be announced at the end of the show
Confirmed special guests: Jovanotti, Raf and Noa & Mira Awad
Second Night - Thursday (06:40am AEDT)
The night is opened by the Newcomers' semi-final
Half of the artists will perform their entries for the second time
Voting will be televote (34%), combined press jury (33%) and radio jury (33%)
A provisional ranking of the Top 5 acts will be announced at the end of the show
Confirmed special guests: Damiano David, BigMama, the cast of Follemente, the cast of Belcanto and the cast of Champagne.
Third Night - Friday (06:40am AEDT)
The remaining half of the artists will perform their entries for the second time
Voting will be televote (34%), combined press jury (33%) and radio jury (33%)
A provisional ranking of the Top 5 acts will be announced at the end of the show
Confirmed special guests: Ermal Meta, Duran Duran and Dario D'Ambrosi
Fourth Night - Saturday (06:40am AEDT)
All 29 artist will perform covers of iconic Italian or international songs
Artists may perform with an acclaimed Italian or international guest
Voting will be televote (34%), combined press jury (33%) and radio jury (33%)
The winning cover will be announced, but unlike previous editions, the result will not count towards the overall score at the end of the festival
The night is closed by the Newcomers' final
Confirmed special guests: Iva Zanicchi, Benji & Fede, the cast of Mare fuori, Paolo Kessisoglu & Lunita Kessisoglu and Edoardo Bove.
Final Night - Sunday (06:40am AEDT)
All 29 artists will perform their songs for the third and final time
At the end of televoting, the final ranking will be drawn up comprised of print and TV media jury (33%), a radio jury (33%) and televoting (34%). The Top 5 ranked acts will perform again.
A new vote will then be held. Of the top five in the super final - the winner will be decided by televote (34%), press jury (33%) and radio jury (33%). The sum of the votes of all three components, added to the votes of the previous general classification, will finally decree the winning song of the Festival.
Confirmed special guests: Planet Funk, Tedua, Antonello Venditti and Vanessa Scalera.
It's a marathon - not a sprint!
Competing artist and song title:
Francesco Gabbani – Viva la vita
Clara – Febbre
Achille Lauro – Incoscienti giovani
Brunori Sas – L’albero delle noci
Shablo ft. Guè, Joshua and Tormento – La mia parola
Giorgia – La cura per me
Emis Killa – Demoni
Marcella Bella – Pelle diamante
Gaia – Chiamo io, chiami tu
Simone Cristicchi – Quando sarai piccola
Irama – Lentamente
Serena Brancale – Anema e core
Olly – Balorda nostalgia
Elodie – Dimenticarsi alle 7
Massimo Ranieri – Tra le mani un cuore
Tony Effe – Damme ‘na mano
Sarah Toscano – Amarcord
Rocco Hunt – Mill vot ancor
Lucio Corsi – Volevo essere un duro
Noemi – Se ti innamori, muori
Bresh – La tana del granchio
Rose Villain – Fuorilegge
Willie Peyote – Grazie, ma no grazie
Modà – Non ti dimentico
Fedez – Battito
Francesca Michielin – Fango in paradiso
Rkomi – Il ritmo delle cose
Coma_Cose – Cuoricini
Joan Thiele – Eco
The Kolors – Tu con chi fai l’amore?
Amongst the line-up are four former Eurovision representatives: Achille Lauro (2022 - Stripper, San Marino), Francesco Gabbani (2017 - Occidentali's Karma), Massimo Ranieri (1971 & 1973 - L'amore è un attimo & Chi sarà con te) and Francesca Michielin (2016 - No Degree of Separation).
It was initially announced 30 artists would compete at the festival. On 29 January 2025 Emis Killa withdrew from the competition due to legal issues, RAI confirmed they would not replace the artist and hence proceeded with 29 entries.
Sanremo Giovani 2024:
On December 18, 2024 Italian Broadcaster RAI hosted the annual Sanremo Giovani final - aimed at finding and platforming up-and-coming young artists from all around Italy.
Since 2019, top placing artists have been given the opportunity to compete in the Sanremo Music Festival "Big Artists" section - however, this year the festival will revert back to having a separate Newcomers' competition. This is a format seen in previous editions.
This year the top four artists of Sanremo Giovanni will compete at Sanremo in the Newcomers' section on the fourth night of the festival, these are the artists and songs:
Alex Wyse - Rockstar
Maria Tomba - Goodbye (Voglio good vibes)
Settembre - Vertebre
Vale LP and Lil Jolie - Dimmi tu quando sei pronto per fare l'amore
Note these artists will be performing the same song at Sanremo to their competition song at Sanremo Giovani.
FantaSanremo:
FantaSanremo is the Italian music industry version of Fantasy Football leagues. Essentially fans can compose a 'team' by choosing five of the artists in the competition, appointing a captain and based on the competition results you earn or lose points. Watch out because the captain is crucial for the final evening where their points are doubled (both good and bad).
The whole affair is very tongue-in-cheek and extremely popular locally. The competition is open to international participants - here at Aussievision we run a hotly contested internal competition every year!
The window for creating a team closes in a few hours so get moving!
The Odds:
Two weeks ago accredited journalists were given the opportunity to listen to the entries and give first impressions. At the risk of disqualification, no Sanremo entries are made public until the festival.
Favourable response to Sanremo regular Giorgia with La cura per me rocketed her straight to the top of the odds. Close behind are Olly with Balorda nostalgia and Achille Lauro with Incoscienti giovani.
Fun Fact: Giorgia is the only artist to win all four major prizes in the same night of Sanremo (Festival winner, Radio/TV Award, Best Lyrics and Critics Choice award) - an unbeaten record from her 1995 appearance.
Prizes:
Winning the premiere Italian Music Festival propels artists into local stardom, or in the case of MÃ¥neskin, Eurovision glory and international success. As nice as it is to win Sanremo, collecting some of the minor awards holds high esteem.
Other awards include:
"Mia Martini" Critics' Choice Award
"Sergio Bardotti" Award for Best Lyrics
"Lucio Dalla" Radio-TV-Web Press Room Choice Award
"Giancarlo Bigazzi" Award for Best Musical Composition
"Enzo Jannacci" Award for Best Musical Interpretation
CoReCom award for Best song that talks about violence against women
Lunezia Award for valorisation of Italian songs
It's going to be one crazy week full of quintessentially Italian music, production and probably a generous dose of drama. I can't wait - never change Sanremo!
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