Sanremo Music Festival 2023

The Sanremo Music Festival 2023 (Italian: Festival di Sanremo 2023), officially the 73rd Italian Song Festival (73º Festival della canzone italiana), was the 73rd edition of the annual Sanremo Music Festival, a television song contest held in the Teatro Ariston of Sanremo, organised and broadcast by RAI. The show was held between 7 and 11 February 2023, and was presented for the fourth time in a row by Amadeus, who also served as the artistic director for the competition, with Gianni Morandi co-hosting.^[1][2]

The festival was won by Marco Mengoni with "Due vite", earning him the right to represent Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023; Mengoni had previously won Sanremo in 2013 and had represented Italy in that year's Eurovision.

The 2023 edition of the Sanremo Music Festival took place at the Teatro Ariston in Sanremo, Liguria, organized by the Italian public broadcaster RAI. The artistic director and the presenter for the competition was Amadeus, for the fourth consecutive year.^[3]

On 24 March 2022, one month after the final of the 2022 edition, RAI officially confirmed Amadeus as the presenter of the 73rd edition of the Sanremo Music Festival.^[4][5] Together with Amadeus, Gianni Morandi served as co-host in all five nights of the festival.^[2] Alongside Amadeus and Morandi, four co-hosts alternated during the five evenings: Chiara Ferragni (first night and final),^[6] Francesca Fagnani [it] (second night),^[7] Paola Egonu (third night) and Chiara Francini (fourth night).^[8]

Voting occurred through the combination of three methods:

• Public televoting, carried out via landline, mobile phone, the contest's official mobile app, and online voting.
• Jury of the press room, TV, radio and web.
• Demoscopic jury, composed by 1000 music fans who vote from their homes via an electronic voting system managed by Ipsos.

Their voting was articulated as follows:

• First two nights: half of the entrants were judged by three separate panels from the jury of the press room, TV, radio and web.
• Third night: all of the entrants were judged through a 50/50 split system by means of televoting and the demoscopic jury. The results were combined with those of the previous nights.
• Fourth night: the same systems used on the first three nights were put in place.
• Fifth night: 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 and the two juries) was held among the top 5, which determined the winner.

For the second time in a row, the Newcomers' section will not be included in the Festival, but a similar selection will be held to decree the six places reserved in the Big Artist section.^[9] The artists competing in the new format were selected through two separate contests: Standard section and Area Sanremo.

On 26 October 2022, the RAI commission for Sanremo Music Festival 2022 announced a list of 714 acts, but only 43 artists coming from all Italian regions – excluding Basilicata and Valle d'Aosta – and from abroad were selected in the first phase.^[10]

On 5 November 2022, the RAI commission announced the eight finalists.^[11]

After the auditions, a RAI commission – composed by Amadeus, Federica Lentini, Massimo Martelli and Leonardo de Amicis – identified 4 finalists for the competition among the 549 acts:^[11][12]

On 16 December 2022, the twelve finalists performed their songs on Sanremo Giovani 2022, broadcast on Rai 1 and presented by Amadeus.^[13] Gianmaria, Will, Olly, Colla Zio, Shari and Sethu will participate in Sanremo 2023 with a new entry.

For the second year in a row, the traditional Big Artists section of the contest was merged with the Newcomers' section, and saw the participation of 28 artists, 22 being selected among established artists and 6 qualifying from Sanremo Giovani. The former 22, selected from over 300 submissions received, were revealed on 4 December 2022, and also attended the night of Sanremo Giovani on 16 December, where their competing songs' titles were also made known.^[14]

The first fourteen competing artists each performed their song.

The remaining fourteen artists each performed their song.

All of the twenty-eight artists performed their songs once again.

The artists each performed a cover of a song from the '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, or '00s, duetting with a guest performer.

All of the artists performed their songs one final time, with the top five reprising their performances before moving on to the final round of voting.^[22]

The special guests of Sanremo Music Festival 2023 included:^{[23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]}

• Singers / musicians: Achille Lauro, Al Bano, Annalisa, Antytila, Black Eyed Peas, Blanco, Depeche Mode, Fedez, Francesco Renga, Gino Paoli, Guè, Italian Air Force Band, J-Ax, La Rappresentante di Lista, Mahmood, Måneskin, Massimo Ranieri, Nek, Ornella Vanoni, Peppino di Capri, Piero Pelù, Pooh, Salmo, Sangiovanni, Takagi & Ketra, Tom Morello
• Actors / comedians / directors / models: Alessandro Siani, Alessia Marcuzzi, Andrea Delogu [it], Angelo Duro [it], Drusilla Foer, Elena Sofia Ricci, Fabrizio Biggio [it], Fiorello, Francesco Arca, Gli Autogol [it], Jody Cecchetto, Lillo, Luisa Ranieri, Mariasole Pollio, Mario Di Leva, Rocío Muñoz Morales, Roberto Benigni, cast of The Sea Beyond: Carolina Crescentini, Massimiliano Caiazzo, Matteo Paolillo, Nicolas Maupas, Valentina Romani, Giacomo Giorgio, Ar Tem, Domenico Cuomo, Clotilde Esposito, Maria Esposito and Kyshan Wilson
• Sports people: Antonio Fuoco, Charles Leclerc, Francesca Lollobrigida
• Other persons or notable figures: National Association D.i.Re – Donne in rete contro la violenza, Pegah Moshir Pour, Sergio and Laura Mattarella, Volodymyr Zelenskyy (via written text)

Rai 1 and Rai Radio 2 brought the official broadcasts of the festival in Italy. The five evenings were also streamed online via the broadcaster's official website RaiPlay, which made it available in all member countries of the European Broadcasting Union, since the festival is broadcast on the Eurovision network.

Broadcasters of the Sanremo Music Festival 2022

Country	Show(s)	Broadcaster(s)	Commentator(s)	Ref(s)
Italy	All shows	Rai 1, Rai 4K [it]	No commentary	[42]
		Rai Radio 2	Ema Stokholma [it] and Gino Castaldo [it]
		RaiPlay, RaiPlay Sound [it]	No commentary
		Rai Italia (outside Italy)
Albania	All shows	RTSH Muzikë, RTSH Tirana	No commentary	[43]
	Final	RTSH 1	Andri Xhahu and Blerina Shehu
Montenegro	All shows	TVCG 2	Nebojsa Sofranac	[44]
Serbia	Nights 1–4	RTS2	No commentary
	Final	RTS3
United Kingdom	Final	GlitterBeam Radio	Eugenio Ceriello and Michael Walton-Dalzell	[45]

• Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023