Through a brief press release, the Italian national broadcaster RAI is now announcing the dates of the next Sanremo Festival. As stated, the 68th annual music event of the country will be taking place from 6 to 10 February 2018 at the Ariston Theater. As with almost every year, the show will most likely  determine the 44th Italian Eurovision representative.

Claudio Baglioni as the artistic director

Along with the dates announcement, RAI also reveals that one of the greatest singers and songwriters of the country, Claudio Baglioni will be the artistic director of the event. With a long experience acquired in a career of 48 years, he is considered to be the most appropriate person to be involved in such a position.

The Director General of RAI, Mario Orfeo states:

We are honored and happy that Baglioni has accepted our invitation. With Claudio we will create a Sanremo edition where the songs and the interpretations will be the protagonists of the biggest event dedicated to Italian music.

Applications for participation will be open until 6 October. Artists can apply via their record labels. All instructions and rules regarding the music event can be found here (in Italian).

Italy at Eurovision

Italy was one of the 7 countries which took part at the very first Eurovision Song Contest in 1956. The country has achieved two victories in the competition; in 1964 and in 1990. After their 1998 withdrawal, the Italians returned to the contest in 2011 after a long break of 14 years.

The latest winner of the Sanremo Festival has been the Italian singer Francesco Gabbani with his song Occidentali’s Karma. Despite being the absolute favorite for the Eurovision victory until the day of the Grand Final, he ended 6th at the scoreboard with 334 points.

Who are gonna be the next Sanremo participants?