Italy: Sanremo Festival 2020 contestants unveiled
The contestants of the Sanremo Festival 2020, the popular Italian music event through which the country selects its Eurovision representative, have been unveiled as the artistic director of the festival, Amedeo Sebastiani, revealed the names of the competing acts.
Although initially the competing acts of Sanremo festival were expected to go public on January 6 during the show I Soliti Ignoti, due to ongoing reports and leaks by the Italian media, Amadeus decided eventually to reveal them earlier to newpape La Repubblica. Thus the 22 acts that will compete in the Campioni category ( experienced and established acts) are the following:
- Anastasio
- Giordana Angi
- Bugo feat. Morgan
- Diodato
- Elodie
- Francesco Gabbani
- Irene Grandi
- Raphael Gualazzi
- Paolo Jannacci
- Junior Cally
- Elettra Lamborghini
- Achille Lauro
- Levante
- Le Vibrazioni
- Marco Masini
- Enrico Nigiotti
- Piero Pelù
- Pinguini Tattici Nucleari
- Rancore
- Riccardo “Riki” Marcuzzo
- Alberto Urso
- Michele Zarrillo
No surprise this year again, the big names of the Italian music industry, among which are two past Eurovision participants. The first one is Raphael Gualazzi, who had represented Italy back in 2011 with his song Madness Of Love (2nd place), marking Italy’s comeback to the contest after 14 years of absense. The second past Eurovision act is Francesco Gabbani who defended the Italian colors at Eurovision 2017 in Kiev, Ukraine. Despite being the favorite to win with his entry Occidentali’s Karma he finished in 6th place.
2020 edition
The 2020 edition of Sanremo festival sees some amendments in its regulations. For the first time the candidates to participate in the festival must declare in advance whether they wish to represent Italy at Eurovision in case they win or they just want to participate in the italian event. Notable that in 2011,2012 and 2016 the winner of Sanremo Festival didn’t represent the country in Eurovision but other participants were assigned to do so. In 2014 Italy had selected its representative via an internal selection and not the festival.
One more significant change concerns the way of determining the winner of the festival. Televoting will be held only in the Grand final night, the first two nights of the show the selection committee (demoscopic) will vote, the third night a committee formed by members of the orchestra and the vocals. On the 5th and final night of the festival the outcome will be determined via a combination of voting by the selection committee and the audience while the final winner will be determined by adding up the results of all five nights.
