Italy: Måneskin wins Sanremo 2021 – ready for Eurovision

The Italian Sanremo Music Festival 2021 has come to an end after five nights of music and full of special acts and notable guests.

In tonight's final (that last almost six hours!), all twenty six participating artists performed their songs for the very last time. Tonight's result was first decided by the public where three superfinalists were decided after adding up the public vote together with the previous nights average provisional rankings.

For the superfinal round, all votes were zeroed so the winner was decided by the combination of votes from the demoscopic jury (33%), the press jury (33%) and the public vote (34%).

Måneskin was crowned as the winner of Sanremo 2021 with the song "Zitti e buoni" after beating Ermal Meta and Francesca Michielin / Fedez in the super final.

During the Rai press conference after Sanremo, Måneskin confirmed that they have accepted the invitation for the Eurovision Song Contest will represent Italy in Rotterdam 2021.

Måneskin

Måneskin, which means "moonshine" in Danish, is an Italian rock band consisting of lead vocalist Damiano David, bassist Victoria De Angelis, guitarist Thomas Raggi, and drummer Ethan Torchio.

The band became popular after placing second in the eleventh series of the Italian talent show X Factor in 2017. The band members first met each other as students of the same middle school. The band's name was chosen when they had to register for Pulse which is a local music contest for emerging bands. While thinking for a band name, the bassist, Victoria, who is half Danish, was asked by her bandmates to think of some Danish words, and they agreed on Måneskin.

Their debut single, Chosen, was released in 2017 by Sony Music and charted at number 2 on the Italian FIMI Singles In 2018, the band released their first Italian-language single, "Morirò da re", which continued their commercial success.

Sanremo 2021

• 2 March 2021: Sanremo Night 1
• 3 March 2021: Sanremo Night 2
• 4 March 2021: Sanremo Night 3
• 5 March 2021: Sanremo Night 4
• 6 March 2021: Sanremo Final

At Nights 1 & 2 (Tuesday & Wednesday) all the 26 artists perform their song for the first time, half of them sang in the first one, the other half will sing in the second night. The outcome of both nights is decided by a demoscopic poll.

At Night 3 (Thursday) all the 26 artists will be given a chance to choose and to perform songs that have competed at previous editions of Sanremo Music Festival. The members of the orchestra and choir will decide Thursday's ranking.

At Night 4 (Friday) all the 26 artists will perform their own song again. The press jury will judge every act and a new ranking will be elaborated, where all the previous votes from previous nights will be added.

At Saturday's Final, every contestant will perform their songs again. In a first stage, the voting will be determined by a system involving the demoscopic jury (33%), the press jury (33%) and the televote (34%) - songs will be ranked from 26th to 4th place.

The top 3 acts qualify to the Superfinal. A new voting will take place and at the end of it, we will have the winner of the 71st edition of Sanremo Music Festival, and will have first refusal to represent Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest 2021.

Italy in Eurovision Song Contest

Italy has been in Eurovision for 45 contests. They have won twice, in 1964 with the song "Non Ho L'étà" and in 1990 with "Insieme: 1992". Worst result was in 1966 where they finished last.

The most known song is "Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu" or better known as "Volare" from 1958. It is also the most covered Eurovision Song Contest song. The song has been covered by famous stars such as Dean Martin, Cliff Richard, David Bowie and many more.

Italy had a long pause from Eurovision Song Contest from 1998 to 2010. Since then Italy has been a "Big-5"-country, automatically qualifying for every year's Grand Final.