Italy: The dates of Sanremo 2016 revealed.
The 66th edition of the Sanremo Song Festival is scheduled to be held from 09-13 February in Sanremo. Carlo Conti will host the shows once more time and will be the artistic director of the contest. The grand finale of the 2016 Sanremo Song Festival will be held on Saturday 13 February.
RAI hasn’t yet confirmed its participation at the forthcoming 2016 Eurovision Song Contest so it’s still unclear whether the Italian Song Festival will be the path through which the Italian Eurovision 2016 representative will be determined.
In 2015 the winners of the Sanremo Song Festival, Il Volo were awarded the golden ticket to represent Italy at the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna. The Italian trio achieved an honorable 3rd place in the grand final with Grande Amore.
Italy debuted at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1956 and was one of the founder members of the contest. The country has won the event 2 times in 1964 with Gigliola Cinquetti and 1990 withToto Cotugno. Italy withdrew from the event in 1998 and returned back in 2011. Since then Italy has selected its Eurovision representatives via the Sanremo Song Festival: Raphael Gualazzi (2011), Nina Zilli (2012) Marco Mengoni (2013), Il Volo. In 2014 was an exception from this proecedure, when RAI opted for an internal selection andEmma Marrone was given the grand honour of representing Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest in Copenhagen with her entry La mia citta.
Stay tuned on the INFE Network for more upcoming news about Italy and the next Italian Eurovision Song contest participation.
