Italy's 'Festival di Sanremo' announces changes to its 75th edition

There'll be some semisesquicentennial celebrations happening in the city of Sanremo in February, as Italy marks three-quarters of a century of its beloved song competition Festival di Sanremo. 

Broadcaster Rai has now confirmed that for the 2025 edition of the contest, some slight changes to the format are being ushered in alongside Carlo Conti's return to Sanremo as artistic director.

As in recent years, it will be taking place over 5 nights in February, alleviating 'la noia' in Italian households from Tuesday 11 February to Saturday 15 February (and well into the early hours of Sunday 16 February, always get extra snacks and soda pop in). 

In 2025, the number of competing entries has been reduced, however. We'll now be seeing 24 songs being performed in the hope of earning that iconic gold and green trophy, down from the 30 that took part at Sanremo 2024.

The 5 nights of Sanremo 2025 will be presented to us like this:

🇮🇹 Night 1: All 24 artists perform their song, with a jury of media professionals scoring each one.

🇮🇹 Night 2: 12 artists perform their song once again, with scoring done by a jury of radio broadcasters as well as a public vote from Italian viewers watching at home.

🇮🇹 Night 3: The remaining 12 perform their song, with scoring continuing from the second night's jury and public vote.

🇮🇹 Night 4: Covers night - all 24 artists will perform their own take on a song of their choice. Voting will be done by the same three sources as in the previous nights, and a winner of the evening will be announced. Unlike in previous years, however, this vote won't contribute to the scores being given to the original songs competing across the other nights, and therefore won't impact the result of Saturday night's final.

🇮🇹 Night 5: The final night. All 24 original songs are performed a third time, with scoring done by the Italian public alone, and combined with the scores that were given on the first three nights. Then, a Top 5 is announced...

Once Carlo Conti reveals the Top 5, those 5 songs will perform again, and voting will open once more. This time a public vote (responsible for 34% of the final score) a jury vote of media professionals (33%) and a jury vote of radio broadcasters (33%) will come together to decide the ultimate winner of Sanremo 2025.

The champion will be given the opportunity to represent Italy at the 69th Eurovision Song Contest in Switzerland.

Rai has published the full list of rules and regulations of the competition.

At the 68th Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö, Italy was represented by Angelina Mango and her song La noia. 

Angelina's performance secured Italy a 7th-place result with 268 points, the country's 11th Top 10 finish since they returned to the Contest in 2011.

You can listen to all 37 songs of Eurovision 2024 via your favourite streaming service or watch the music videos on our YouTube channel.

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