The 65th Sanremo Festival closing gala will take place tonight. The latest edition of the longest-running song contest in the world will have its final performances and voting this evening. At the end of the show we will learn the name of the winner of the Campioni competition, the artist that will have the opportunity to represent italy in the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna.

About the show

Sanremo 2015 will say goodbye tonight after 5 nights of music performed by the best of the best in Italy. The Campioni, the Nuove Proposte and the guest performers have delighted the audience and made the eyes of the world turn to the town of Sanremo. The Covers competition and the Nuove Proposte have their winners already. Only the 16 Campioni that remain in the competition are still to discover who is the favorite of the Italian public and juries.

In the Campioni semi-final last night sixteen entries earned enough support to continue in the contest and enter the final that will take place tonight.

The sixteen entries that will compete for the victory in the Grand Final of the Sanremo Festival 2015 are these:

• Bianca Atzei – Il solo al mondo
• Lorenzo Fragola – Siamo uguali
• Irene Grandi – Un vento senza nome
• Il Volo – Grande amore
• Moreno – Oggi ti parlo così
• Marco Masini – Che giorno è
• Nina Zilli – Sola
• Annalisa – Una finestra tra le stelle
• Malika Ayane – Adesso e qui
• Chiara – Straordinario
• Gianluca Grignani – Sogni infranti
• Nek – Fatti avanti amore
• Dear Jack – Il mondo esplode
• Alex Britti – Un attimo importante
• Grazia di Michele e Mauro Coruzzi / Platinette – Io sono una finestra
• Nesli – Buona fortuna amore

Carlo Conti, Arisa and the Italian Eurovision 2014 entrant Emma Marrone will show us through the Grand Final of the 65^th Sanremo Festival.

Voting

Similarly to the system used in the semi-final, the finalists will be subject to the televoting, the experts jury, and an audience jury with 300 judges that will vote from home through an electronic system. The televote will count for 40% of the result, the vote of the experts for 30% and the vote of the audience jury for the remaining 30%. None of the results of the previous galas will count for the final voting tonight.

The 16 finalists will perform their entries and a first round of votes will take place, with the system described previously. The three artists with the highest score in the first round will perform their songs again (Finalissima), and they will be subject to a second round of votes with the same system. The latter will give the winner, the runner-up and the third qualified. The three will be announced. The winner of the Festival will have the option to represent Italy in the 60th Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna in May. If he or she declined, the organization will select the Italian Eurovision entry among the other participants.

Guest artists

For the final gala the Sanremo Festival 2015 will have Gianna Nannini, Biagio Antonacci, Ed Sheeran and The Avener as guest artists.

How to watch

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The Sanremo Festival Grand Final will start tonight at 20:20 CET. You can follow it live through these channels:

• Rai HD
• Rai Radio 1
• Rai Radio 2
• Rai live webcast
• eurovision.tv webcast

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Sanremo 2015 Agenda

• 10/02 – Sanremo Notte 1
• 11/02 – Sanremo Notte 2
• 12/02 – Sanremo Notte 3
• 13/02 – Sanremo Notte 4 (Semi-final of Campioni with twenty acts)
• 14/02 – Sanremo Notte 5 (Grand Final of Sanremo 2015 with sixteen acts)

The official Sanremo Festival website will offer the latest updates. You can also follow the action and leave your comments on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with the hashtag #sanremo2015.

The story so far

The first Sanremo Festival was celebrated in 1951, it is still celebrated today and it is a major event in Italy. The Italian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest is selected traditionally among the Sanremo participants each year. In fact, Sanremo was the inspiration for the Eurovision Song Contest…

The stage of Sanremo has had worldwide renowned figures such as Domenico Modugno (Eurovision Italy 1958, 1959, 1966), Gigliola Cinquetti (Eurovision Italy 1964 and 1974), Iva Zanicchi (Eurovision Italy 1969) , Al Bano and Romina Power (Eurovision Italy 1976 and 1985), Laura Pausini or Eros Ramazzotti.

Italy has won the Eurovision Song Contest twice: in 1964 with Non ho l’età sung by Gigliola Cinquetti and in 1990 with Toto Cutugno presneting Insieme: 1992.

ESCToday wishes to thank eurofestivalia.net.

Stay tuned to ESCToday.com for more information on Italy, Sanremo and the Eurovision Song Contest.