Sanremo Music Festival is a cultural phenomenon in Italy - spanning five nights, around 25 hours total and is the selection for Italy's Eurovision participant in 2023.
It will run nightly from February 7 to 11, at 9pm CET locally. RAI ('Radiotelevisione italiana') is the Italian broadcaster of both Sanremo and Eurovision.
The competition will once again be hosted by the much adored Amadeus with Gianni Morandi. This will be Amadeus's fourth year as artistic director.
Generally the winner goes on to participate for the Mediterranean nation at Eurovision - however; Sanremo has never been a simple 'national final', on occasion if the winner declines the opportunity than it is up to the broadcasters to select someone else from that participating year (not necessarily 2nd place).
2023 Sanremo Participants:
Giorgia
Articolo 31
Elodie
Colapesce Dimartino
Ariete
Modà
Mara Sattei
Leo Gassmann
I Cugini di Campagna
Mr. Rain
Marco Mengoni
Anna Oxa
Lazza
Tananai
Paola e Chiara
LDA
Madame
Gianluca Grignani
Rosa Chemical
Coma Cose
Levante
Ultimo
In addition to the listed artists, six successful competitors from the newcomers' section of 'Sanremo Giovani' (final to be held 16 December 2022) will also compete in the 'big artists section' for the golden lion for a total of 28 artists at Sanremo. We're in for a long show.
Amongst many fan favourites there is one Eurovision alumni in the line up: Marco Mengoni who represented Italy at Eurovision 2013 with the sublime 'L'essenziale' for 7th place.