Sanremo Festival announces new features and reduces participants

The organizers of the 76th edition of the Sanremo Festival announced this Thursday (16) new rules for the next music competition, which will take place between February 24 and 28, 2026, with a reduction in the number of main competitors. Now, the event will be held with 26 "great artists" and another four from the "revelations" category, two of which were selected during the "Sanremo Giovani" final on December 14, and two others coming from the Italian city hosting the competition.

Among the rules, the voting structure also stands out. As in previous years, three juries will evaluate the contestants: public televoting; the press room, TV, and web; and the radio jury.

In this way, the distribution of votes will be 34% for the public, 33% for the press and 33% for radio.

During the festival nights, the dynamics will be adjusted: on the first night (Tuesday), all 26 "Great Artists" will perform, with their songs evaluated by the juries of the Press Room, TV and Web.

On the second night (Wednesday), 13 of the 26 artists will compete, with votes from the public and the Radio Jury, each with a weighting of 50%. For the "Revelations" category, the four artists will perform in pairs, being evaluated by televoting, the Press, TV and Web Jury, and the Radio Jury. The winners of each challenge will advance to the third night.

The same method will be applied on the third night (Thursday) for the "big artists." In the Newcomers category, there will be a final showdown between the two qualified artists.

The cover night, scheduled for Friday, will be an opportunity for the Great Artists, accompanied by special guests, to reinterpret Italian or international songs. However, the result of this night will not affect the final ranking.

The covers will be judged by three judges. In the final round on the fifth and final night (Saturday), all 26 songs will be performed, as voted on by the three judges.

The results of this vote will be combined with those from previous nights (except "Cover" night) to determine the ranking of the songs/artists.

A new performance and voting will be held for the five best songs. The results will be added to the overall results of the previous performances to determine a new ranking of the five songs/artists, thus awarding the winner of the 76th edition of the festival.

One of the most notable changes will be song length. By 2026, songs from Major Artists will be limited to 3 minutes and 30 seconds, while songs from the Breakthrough Artists category will be limited to 3 minutes.

The songs will mostly be in Italian, but the inclusion of words or short phrases in dialects or foreign languages ​​is permitted, as long as they do not alter the identity of the song.

Furthermore, the winners of the "Champions and Revelations" categories will be "protected" by Rai until March 3, 2026, and will not be able to participate in programs on other channels.

The deadline to register songs is November 17, 2025, and the selected artists will be announced from November 23.

This year's edition will be Carlo Conti's fifth consecutive artistic director and presenter. His involvement with the event has been marked by an elegant and dynamic approach, placing music at the center of the show and always striving to innovate and bring new talent to the fore. The festival's full regulations can be found on Rai's official website (https://www.rai.it/programmi/sanremo/Regolamento-Festival-di-Sa nremo-2026-e-Info-d36dafa4-f190-4d59-b114-deb0d6b38382.html).

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