It’s the 71st edition of the popular music festival in Italy. The Sanremo Festival is also been seen as predecessor for the Eurovision Song Contest, which started in 1956. The festival takes place in the Teatro Ariston in the beautiful small city Sanremo and will be hosted by Amadeus and Gianni Morandi.

Like ever year it’s a week filled with five live shows, it is very popular in Italy and the viewing figures are enormously high, even if the shows end late after midnight. In various rounds songs are presented with a live orchestra paired with entertainment of the Italian and international show business. This year Depeche Mode will also appear in the final show.
There are 28 song in the competition, among those there are singers, which have participated in the festival as well as in the ESC as Italian representatives like Marco Mengoni and Anna Oxa. Beside their festival songs the singer will also sing another song, which is not in the competition. The results from each part will be determined by a jury from the press (33%), online jury (33%) and radio jury (33%) and in the final night, only the public will determine will determine the best five acts from each part. The final round will be determined by televoting, press jury and demoscopic jury.

This is a recap of all the songs:

• Watch the Grand Final of the Italian Sanremo Festival: Saturday, 11 February 20:40 CET here: https://www.raiplay.it/dirette/rai1