Sanremo Music Festival 2024

The Sanremo Music Festival 2024 (Festival di Sanremo 2024), officially the 74th Italian Song Festival (74º Festival della canzone italiana), was the 74th edition of the annual Sanremo Music Festival, a television song contest held at the Teatro Ariston of Sanremo, organised and broadcast by RAI. It was held between 6 and 10 February 2024, and presented for the fifth and final time in a row by Amadeus, who also served as the artistic director for the competition.

As had been the case since 2015, the winner of the festival, Angelina Mango with "La noia", earned the right of first refusal to represent in the Eurovision Song Contest 2024.

Format
The 2024 edition of the Sanremo Music Festival took place at the Teatro Ariston in Sanremo, Liguria, organised by the Italian public broadcaster RAI. The artistic director and the presenter for the competition was Amadeus, for the fifth and final consecutive year.

Presenters
On 24 March 2022, a month after the final of the 2022 edition, RAI officially confirmed Amadeus as the presenter of the 73rd and 74th editions of the Sanremo Music Festival, announcing in June 2023 that this would be his last time hosting the event. Each of the nights of the festival was co-hosted, respectively, by: Marco Mengoni, the winner of the previous edition, who additionally performed his 2013 and 2023 winning entries "L'essenziale" and "Due vite" as well as other songs from his repertoire; Giorgia, who additionally performed her breakthrough song "E poi" and her 1995 winning entry "Come saprei", as well as other songs from her repertoire; Teresa Mannino; Lorella Cuccarini; and Rosario Fiorello, who was originally meant to be a guest on that night. The competing entries on each of the second and third nights were also introduced by the non-competing artists alongside the hosts.

In addition, PrimaFestival, the introductory segment aired before each of the nights and during the opening red carpet, was hosted by Paola & Chiara, Mattia Stanga and Daniele Cabras.

Format changes
On 19 June 2023, Amadeus announced to have proposed changes in the rules of the contest, as well as in the organisation of the traditional five evening shows. The complete rules were published on 10 July.

Changes affected the number of the entries (increased from 28 to 30), the arrangement of the five shows (with the first night being organised as the third night of previous editions), the cover performance show (which was opened to songs from any time and place) and the jury system (as explained below).

Voting
Voting occurred again through the combination of three methods:


 * Public televoting, carried out via landline and mobile phone.
 * Jury of the press room, TV and web.
 * Jury of the radio, detached from the second one and replacing the demoscopic jury from previous editions.

Their voting was articulated as follows:


 * First night: all of the entrants were judged by the jury of the press room, TV and web.
 * Second night: half of the entrants were judged through a 50/50 split system by means of televoting and the jury of the radio.
 * Third night: the other half of the entrants were judged through a 50/50 split system by means of televoting and the jury of the radio.
 * Fourth night: the covers were judged through a split system by means of the televoting (34%) and the two juries (33% each). The results obtained on each evening that far were then combined.
 * Fifth night: as in previous years, the entrants were judged by televoting alone, to be added up to the results obtained that far; ultimately, a final voting round (again a sum of televoting at 34% and the two juries at 33% each) was held among the top five, which determined the winner.

For the first time, only the top five entries in each of the first four nights' partial rankings were revealed during the show, and only the complete ranking before and after the final was made public.

Sanremo Giovani 2023
For the third time in a row, the Newcomers' section was not included in the Festival, with the Sanremo Giovani selection directly decreeing three places reserved in the Big Artists' section. The twelve artists competing in the format were selected through two separate contests: standard section and Area Sanremo.

Standard selection
Online submissions for the standard selection were open between 15 June and 19 October 2023. On 27 October 2023, it was announced that 564 acts had applied, 49 of which were selected at a listening session by a musical committee – composed of Federica Lentini, Massimo Martelli and Leonardo De Amicis, and chaired by the artistic director (Amadeus) – to proceed to a live audition in Rome on 10 November; there, a total of eight Sanremo Giovani finalists were selected. Their songs were released on 18 November 2023.

Area Sanremo 2023
The rules of the Area Sanremo selection, organised by the Municipality of Sanremo alongside the Sanremo Symphonic Orchestra Foundation, were released on 10 October 2023, with the opening of an online application platform lasting until 30 October 2023. Artists aged between 16 and 30 were eligible to compete. The 772 submitting acts were auditioned by a musical committee – composed of Alessio De Stefani, Lavinia Iannarilli, Paolo Biamonte and Sergio Rubino, and chaired by the artistic director (Amadeus) – between 4 and 24 November 2023 at the Sanremo Palafiori, with around fifty qualifiers from this phase attending a final round on 25 and 26 November 2023; there, twenty winners were proclaimed among whom a total of four Sanremo Giovani finalists were selected. Their songs were released on 1 December 2023.

Final
The final of Sanremo Giovani was held on 19 December 2023 at the Sanremo Casino Theatre, presented by Amadeus and broadcast on Rai 1 and Rai Radio 2, as well as on the broadcaster's online platform RaiPlay. The ranking was determined by a 50/50 combination of votes from the musical committee and the artistic director (Amadeus); the resulting top three artists were selected to compete in the Big Artists' section.

Competing entries
For the third year in a row, the Newcomers' section of the contest was merged into the traditional Big Artists section, which sees the participation of 30 artists. 27 were selected by the artistic director among established artists, both by direct invitation and from over 400 submissions received by the deadline of 27 November 2023, and were announced on 3 December 2023; the remaining three artists qualified from Sanremo Giovani on 19 December 2023 and competed with a new song. All the titles were announced on that day, with the lyrics published on 30 January 2024. By tradition, the full entries were only premiered during the festival, but a special listening session reserved for the press was held at the RAI studios on 15 January.

First night
All of the competing artists performed their songs.

Second night
Fifteen of the competing artists performed their songs. Each of them was introduced on stage by one of the non-competing artists.

Third night
The remaining fifteen competing artists performed their songs. Each of them was introduced on stage by one of the non-competing artists.

Fourth night
The artists each performed an Italian or international song from the past (or a medley thereof), duetting with one or more guest performers.

Fifth night
All of the artists performed their songs one final time, with the top five moving on to the final round of voting.

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Special guests and other acts
Special guests included:
 * first night – Federica Brignone, Lazza, Tedua, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic;
 * second night – Bob Sinclar, Giovanni Allevi, John Travolta, Leo Gassmann, Orchestra Casadei with Nuova Orchestra Santa Balera, Rosa Chemical, and the cast of The Sea Beyond;
 * third night – Bresh, Edoardo Leo, Eros Ramazzotti (with "Terra promessa"), Gianni Morandi, Paola & Chiara, Russell Crowe, Sabrina Ferilli, Stefano Massini with Paolo Jannacci, and the Verona Arena Foundation Choir (with "Va', pensiero");
 * fourth night – Arisa (with "La notte"), Francesco Bagnaia, Gigi D'Agostino, Jalisse (with "Fiumi di parole"), Margherita Buy with Elena Sofia Ricci, and the cast of the upcoming TV series Mameli – Il ragazzo che sognò l'Italia;
 * fifth night – Claudio Gioè, Gigliola Cinquetti (with "Non ho l'età"), Lazza, Luca Argentero, Roberto Bolle, Tananai, and Tedua.

Following the death of Toto Cutugno on 22 August 2023, Amadeus announced his intentions to include a segment paying homage to the artist's record 15 participations in the festival. This was ultimately part of the first night of the festival.

Local broadcast
Rai 1 and Rai Radio 2 brought the official broadcasts of the festival in Italy, with the latter featuring a special programming throughout the festival week and live commentary of the shows by Ema Stokholma and Gino Castaldo. The five evenings were also streamed online via the broadcaster's official online platform RaiPlay.

International broadcast
Outside Italy, RAI airs the festival on its international channel Rai Italia and makes the RaiPlay broadcast available in all member countries of the European Broadcasting Union, since the festival, serving as the Italian national final for the Eurovision Song Contest, is broadcast on the Eurovision network; the live broadcast of the 2024 edition, as well as the availability of related videoclips, was expanded worldwide broadcast. In addition, the event was aired on a number of local broadcasters across different countries:

Ratings
With an average share of 74.1% and a total of 14.301 million viewers, the 2024 final achieved the highest viewership values since 1995 and 1998, respectively.

False bomb alerts
During a gala organised by RadioMediaset at Villa Nobel on 5 February on the occasion of the opening of the festival week, the local police received an anonymous call alerting about the presence of a bomb, and the venue was evacuated. However, the authorities failed to find any signs of a bomb threat. Most of the competing artists were reportedly present at the event. The following day, a similar alert for the Teatro Ariston also proved to be unjustified and the caller was identified shortly after; he confessed to procurato allarme in order to disrupt the competition, and was scheduled for prosecution.

Legal actions
On 7 February, RAI's CEO Roberto Sergio announced that the broadcaster would take disciplinary measures against one of its journalists following a "denigratory tweet" directed at the physical appearance of contestant BigMama.

Following John Travolta's guest appearance on 7 February, when his shoes were prominently featured in the televised images, Italian consumers association Codacons filed a complaint against RAI for aggravated fraud and covert advertising, as the actor had an advertising contract with the footwear brand he was wearing; the broadcaster opened an internal investigation. In addition to this, controversy arose surrounding Travolta's skit on that night, where he was seen performing the "Chicken Dance" next to Amadeus and Fiorello, and which was widely received as "humiliating" and "discomforting" for the actor; Travolta ultimately denied consent over the use of the related video sequence, forcing RAI to remove it as an excerpt from RaiPlay.

Calls for Israel–Hamas war ceasefire
During the festival, contestants Dargen D'Amico and Ghali made statements calling for a ceasefire in the ongoing Israel–Hamas war, with the latter publicly calling to "stop the genocide" after his performance in the final. In a tweet, the Israeli ambassador to Italy, Alon Bar, accused Ghali of "exploiting the festival's stage to spread hate and provocations", adding that the musical event could have been instead an occasion to express solidarity with the victims of the Re'im music festival massacre. In turn, Ghali received praise by the president of the Association of Palestinians in Italy, Mohammad Hannoun, during a demonstration in the artist's home city of Milan. The following day, live on the show Domenica in hosted by Mara Venier, Ghali responded to Bar's accusation by recalling his long personal history of speaking out on such topics, pointing out that "this thing has been going on for a while" and claiming that "terror politics" prevents people from freely calling for peace. Shortly after, Venier read out a statement by RAI's CEO Roberto Sergio with an expression of his "heartfelt and staunch" solidarity to "the people of Israel and the Jewish community". In response, pro-Palestinian demonstrations broke out between 13 and 17 February outside RAI's production centres of Naples, where a number of protesters were injured in clashes with the police; RAI Production Center, Turin, where glass bottles, eggs and smoke bombs were thrown; and RAI Production Center, Milan; as well as outside the broadcaster's general headquarters in Rome and its regional offices in RAI Offices, Bari, RAI Offices, Bologna, RAI Offices, Bolzano, RAI Offices, Cagliari, Cosenza, RAI Offices, Florence, RAI Offices, Genoa, RAI Offices, Palermo, RAI Offices, Perugia, RAI Offices, Pescara, RAI Offices, Trento, RAI Offices, Trieste and RAI Offices, Venice. Sergio was preemptively put under guard following threats. Amadeus responded to Bar's comments by stating that "any war in the world must be stopped" and adding that the competing artists sent messages of "peace, freedom of thought, racial equality, values", in line with the "inclusive" spirit of the festival. Employees at RAI released a joint statement distancing themselves from Sergio's "use of corporate media to convey personal ideas and political or human affiliations", judging his message as "one-sided" and "kneeled to Israeli diplomacy"; the statement quoted D'Amico and Ghali's original calls. Lega Nord senator Alessandro Morelli, serving as governmental undersecretary, suggested the implementation of banning orders for artists who make "political propaganda" on public television, similarly to D.A.SPO.; following heavy criticism, including by Sanremo entrant Fiorella Mannoia, Morelli stated that his proposal was meant as a "provocation", while defending his position over the artists' use of public platforms.