Buongiorno Roma! News are coming in from the peninsula. Italian national broadcaster, RAI, released details about the forthcoming Festival of Sanremo. Guess what? The winner will once again be granted the ticket to Eurovision. How? Let’s find out.

The Italian Song Festival of Sanremo is turning 70 next year. And as Italy is getting ready for the most famous national competition, Eurovision fans will be happy to know that the winner of next year’s Festival will once again receive the honour to represent the country at the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest, as it has been the case for the past years. This has been communicated last week by Italian national broadcaster RAI.

The champion among the champions

The 2020 Sanremo Festival will be composed by two categories: Campioni, with 20 acts, and Nuove proposte, with 8. The winner of the Campioni section will be selected jointly by four juries: a demoscopic jury, the press jury, the televote and finally the musicians and choir members of the orchestra.

The Festival will once again run for five nights, 4-8 February 2020. The winner will be crowned during the final night on Saturday 8 February. The announcement will be made as usual shortly before 2am.

There is something new concerning the selection for the Eurovision Song Contest. To avoid surprises after the competition, the organisers now require all selected artists for the Campioni section to provide a written form where they state their interest in representing Italy in Rotterdam next May in case of victory.

Take your chance

Feeling connected to the Italian audience and music industry? Then why don’t you take your chance and apply for the Campioni section. RAI is accepting applications until Monday 9 December 2019. The 20 selected acts will be revealed by this year’s Artistic Director and Italian TV-icon Amadeus on 6 January 2020 live on Rai 1.

And as we wait to discover who will battle for the victory in Sanremo, let’s re-watch Mahmood on the big stage in Israel, where he represented his homecountry with the song Soldi, finishing runner-up shortly behind the winner Duncan Laurence: