In the meeting with journalists at the Rai headquarters in Milan (in connection with those in Rome) the artistic director Carlo Conti to introduce the songs for pre-listening to the media he used a very Sanremo floral metaphor
«In choosing the thirty songs I tried to create a bouquet of flowers as varied as possible. It’s not me who goes looking for artists, but it’s them who propose themselves and it’s like going to a florist and seeing what’s cool. Maybe the type of rose you wanted isn’t there but it could be that it’s a flower that you didn’t even know about and that strikes you. I tried to give the maximum variety of styles, genres, to satisfy the widest range of television audiences. Last year was particularly lucky and the final ranking coincided with the sales and streaming data. We’ll see if this combination will be repeated.”
This edition will be dedicated to Pippo Baudowho passed away on 16 August 2025, and who boasts the record of hosting at the Ariston, 13: his first hosting dates back to 1968, the last to 2008.
«It can be said that he invented the Festival as we know it», comments Carlo Conti. «In addition to the exhibition on the host set up at the Forte Tecla in Sanremo, taking up what was one of his post-festival broadcasts Top hits, on the following two Saturdays from the studios in Rome we will host 15 singers at a time, at the same time seeing how the rankings are going.”
The cast of Sanremo 2026 tells of a precise balance between generations, artistic paths and different musical worlds. Among the 30 Big names competing, Festival veterans and absolute debuts, artists with a long Sanremo history and names experiencing their first experience on the Ariston stage coexist.
Some curiosities
This edition of the Festival is very “young” given that the average age of the singers is 28 years. The younger ones? El Ma and Nicolo Filippucci (2007 and 2006). There are 4 former winners: Marco Masini, Arisa, Francesco Renga and Ermal Meta (together with Fabrizio Moro). Raf won as “author” (of You can give more, by Morandi-Ruggeri-Tozzi). There are “excellent debuts”: from solo J-Ax to Tommaso Paradiso, Bambole di Pezza, for example. And equally awaited returns: the divine Patty Pravo, Malika Ayane, Arisa herself, Michele Bravi. In addition to a large “rapper quota”. Among which this year’s outsider could hide. There is no shortage of “couples”: the artistic one born right on the Sanremo stage (Fedez – Masini) and the “real” one who is consecrated as artistic (Maria Antonietta and Colombre).
The four new proposals are then added:
Angelica Bove;– “Brick”; Nicolò Filippucci: “Laguna”; Mazzariello: “Manifestation of love”; Blind, El Ma & Soniko: “In my DMs”
Sanremo 2026 confirms the five-evening plan, with a voting system that combines televoting, press jury (TV and web) and radio jury, modulated differently over the course of the week. The collateral programs, PrimaFestival DopoFestival, which will accompany the public before and after the live broadcasts from the Ariston, have also been confirmed.
There will only be one co-host for the five evenings, Laura Pausini, for the first time in this capacity, while he participated twice as a competitor and six times as a guest.
Regular guest is another big name in Italian music, Max Pezzali, performing for all five evenings from 24 to 28 February on board the Costa Toscana ship moored off the coast of Sanremo.
However, nothing has yet transpired about the super guests.
