Good evening Europe and Australia, this is Sanremo calling. The 74th edition of the most important Italian music contest has reached its final night and has already delivered a winner. Last night all 30 contestants performed the cover of an Italian or international song of their choice together with a non-competing artists. Neapolitan rapper Geolier came on top of the ranking and present himself as a serious contender for the ultimate win tonight.

If you thought that 28 hours of live television from Tuesday to Saturday would be boring, think again. The 74th Sanremo Festival has given us unforgettable musical moments and is ready for more. Last night Day 4 of the contest saw the participation of all 30 entrants who performed covers together with invited artists. Most songs were in Italian, while a few contestants decided to take a different road and sing in English, Spanish, Arabic and even Neapolitan dialect.

Votes came from the radio jury (33%), the press jury (33%) and the televote (34%). At the end of the night Amadeus and his co-host Lorella Cuccarini announced the top 5 of the covers night:

1. Geolier with Guè, Gigi D’Alessio e Luchè – Strade (Medley)
2. Angelina Mango with Quartetto d’archi dell’Orchestra di Roma – La rondine
3. Annalisa with La Rappresentante di Lista e il coro Artemia – Sweet dreams
4. Ghali with Ratchopper – Italiano vero (Medley)
5. Alfa with Roberto Vecchioni – Sogna ragazzo sogna

Geolier with Guè, Gigi D’Alessio e Luchè were therefore crowned winners of the covers night. They follow the steps of Marco Mengoni in this special ranking, who won the 2023 covers night with Kingdom Choir and the song Let it be. Mengoni went then on to win the overall contest.

Day 5 – 10 February 2024

Only tonight’s Grand Final stands between us and the winner of the 2024 Sanremo Festival. While last night’s results were not about the competing entries of this edition, its votes will count for tonight’s final ranking, so they are definitely relevant.

This Sanremo appears more and more to be a runoff race between Geolier and Angelina Mango, with Annalisa and Ghali surging as possible strong contenders. Early week favourites Loredana Bertè, Mahmood and Diodato have on the contrary experienced a downwards spiral and would need a very strong finish in order to be in the top 5 of the Grand Final.

Even if the detailed results of the votes have not been released, Geolier is expected to surf the wave of the televote, while no clear winner emerges from the juries, whose votes are split among few entries, notably Angelina Mango and Annalisa.

Tonight all 30 contestants will go on stage with their participating songs. Amadeus and Fiorello will take the millions and millions of viewers through 6.5 hours of live television. Special guests are ballet dancer Roberto Bolle and former Eurovision winner Gigliola Cinquetti (Non ho l’età, 1964) who will celebrate 60 years of the combined Sanremo-Eurovision wins.

Who will finish on top?

Tonight votes will come from the televote only. After all 30 performances the hosts will announce the final ranking, which will take into account all votes expressed during the week. Everything will then be set back to zero and the top 5 will start a completely new competition among them. They will perform once more to determine the ultimate of the 2024 Sanremo Festival. The winner will come from a deliberation of the press jury (33%), the radio jury (33%) and the televote (34%).

According to the schedule Amadeus will proclaim the winner close to 03:00 CET.

How to watch

The Grand Final of Sanremo 2024 will begin at 20:40 CET. Eurofans can watch it on the following channels:

• Rai 1
• RaiPlay.it