Sanremo Festival and the Eurovision Song Contest

The Italian Sanremo Festival is a prestigous music competition in Italy, which in recent years has been used again to find the Italian participant for the Eurovision Song Contest. Our beloved contest was shaped and formed in the idea of the Sanremo Festival. Read all about that Italian show in this article!

The Festival della canzone italiana di Sanremo is held annually in the town of Sanremo, Liguria. Just like Eurovision, it is a music competition of previously unreleased songs. All the big Italian music stars took part in Sanremo, many of them even started their career at the festival. Think of names like Nek, Andrea Bocelli, Eros Ramazotti, Laura Pausini and many more!

History of Sanremo

The first edition of the Sanremo Festival was held between 29 and 31 January 1951. There were only three participants: Nilla Pizzi, Achille Togliani, and Duo Fasano. Starting from 1955, all editions of the festival have been broadcast live by the Italian TV station Rai.

From 1951 to 1976, the Festival took place in the Sanremo Casino, but starting from 1977, all the following editions were held in the Teatro Ariston, except in 1990, which was held at the Nuovo Mercato dei Fiori. From the 80’s the competition got enlarged with a Newcomers section, giving a stage for upcoming talents in the Italian music industry.

Between 1953 and 1971, except in 1956, each song was sung twice by two different artists, each one using an individual orchestral arrangement, to illustrate the meaning of the festival as a composers’ competition, not a singers’ competition. During this era of the festival, it was custom that one version of the song was performed by a native Italian artist while the other version was performed by an international guest artist. This became a way for many international artists to debut their songs on the Italian market, including Louis Armstrong, Stevie Wonder, Jose Feliciano and Paul Anka.

The festival went on to form the basis for the annual Eurovision Song Contest and is used as a method for choosing the Italian entry for that event each year.

Sanremo and the Eurovision Song Contest

Up to 1966 the winner of Sanremo was also the Italian entry at the Eurovision Song Contest. In that year, Domenica Modugno finished in last place and Italy changed things around. In most of the latter years, the winning artist went to Eurovision with another song.

But after Italy’s comeback – they were absent from Eurovision between 1998 and 2010 – they started to rely on Sanremo again heavily and a lot of the winning acts also succesfully went to Eurovision again. The only exemptions were in 2014 and 2016. In 2014, Emma Marrone was already chosen internally before the contest in Copenhagen, leaving Arisa out of Eurovision. As of 2020, Arisa is still the last female winning Sanremo. But in 2016, Francesca Michielin went to Stockholm, after the group Stadio were the last act to decline going to Eurovision to date.

Check out this overview below of all the winning acts at Sanremo and whether they went to Eurovision or not.