Sanremo is Italy’s song festival, a run of live television nights each winter from the Ligurian seaside town of the same name, followed, argued over and endlessly replayed the morning after.
It started very quietly. The first edition opened on 29 January 1951 in the ballroom of the Sanremo casino and was broadcast on RAI radio, with 20 songs chosen from 240 entries and shared between just three acts; Nilla Pizzi won with Grazie dei fiori. The audience was so sparse that staff had to round people up to fill the empty tables, and the evening was meant partly to entertain diners on their way to the gaming room. The festival has since become a launch pad for Europe: on 6 March 2021 the Roman band Måneskin won with Zitti e buoni, accepted the invitation to represent Italy at Eurovision and, in May, took the title in Rotterdam.