Italy:The dates of the 70th Sanremo Festival revealed

The 70th Sanremo Festival will be held at the Teatro Ariston on February 4-8, 2020. This is all that became known from the meeting between RAI and the Sanremo’s city officials earlier this month.

The favorite for the position of presenter / artistic director

Since Claudio Baglioni has resigned as an artistic director and host of the last two very successful editions of the Festival, nobody seems to know who will take that position or whether there will be a distinguished artistic director and presenter.

Numerous names have already been rumored for the new artistic director such as  Carlo Conti, Andrea Bocelli and Lucio Presta recently, as well as Amadeus and Alessandro Cattalan, without excluding Baglioni for one more year, though  this seems unlikely.

Another name that sounds great is Paolo Bonolis, who, however, in unsubstantiated time, has stated that he will only do so if Sanremo departs from the tiny Ariston theater, and could do a great event like  Eurovision in a larger arena.

Meanwhile, the municipality of Sanremo, co-organizer of the Festival together with RAI, looks at the possibility of building a new space (3000-4000 capacity) in the near future for the festival, which seems to be encouraged by Rai.  The female face that will be found next to any male host it will be Diletta Leotta.

The Mayor of Sanremo is worried-the voting system is changing

However, the mayor of Sanremo expressed his concern on the delay of  the whole organization this year and stressed the importance of getting the best possible preparations, since in 2020 we will have the 70th edition of the Festival.  He also underlined the importance of the Young Artists Festival (which recently gave us names like Francesco Gabbani, Ermal Meta and Mahmood).

After the disappointment followed Mahmood’s victory, thanks to the judging panels (even if the audience showed that loved his song along the way), the voting system and the winning method will be reviewed and a special team is working on it. However, 100% televoting even at Superfinal seems unlikely.

The next meeting will take place in September, when we will have the official announcements about the new presenter and artistic director of the Festival.

Nevertheless,whether Italy uses or not m the Sanremo Festival this year to choose its representative in the Eurovision Song Contest will be announced  when the regulations of the 70th Festival will be officially published.  However, it is most likely that RAI will use again the Festival winner in the upcoming Song contest in the Netherlands.