And that’s ten! The city of Sanremo will be trying to host the Eurovision Song Contest. They are the tenth city to throw their hat into the ring and make their interest public, after the President of Liguria and the Mayor of Sanremo announce their candidacy. The major question however is… Can Sanremo do it?
Back to a theatre in Sanremo?
Sanremo, located just forty kilometres away from Monaco, is a small city. Only 56,000 people live there, which would make it the smallest host city since Millstreet in 1993. However, the location of Sanremo, combined with its history would make it a contest to never forget. The legendary Festival di Sanremo always takes place in the city. The first edition took place back in 1951 and was the example on which Marcel Bezençon based the Eurovision Song Contest.
Its status as host and name giver of the predecessor of the Eurovision Song Contest makes Sanremo a perfect host city. At least, that is what the president of the Liguria region, Giovanni Toti, claims. After lashing out against French press for reporting on the controversy surrounding Måneskin, he looks ahead to 2022 and says he spoke to mayor Alberto Biancheri of Sanremo. The City of Flowers is the home of music in Italy and back in 1991, Sanremo was originally chosen as the host city of the Eurovision Song Contest. RAI eventually moved the contest to Rome because of the international conflict in the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
There’s just one minor detail for the Ligurian city. They would wish to host the show at the just as legendary venue Teatro Ariston. The theatre has hosted the Festival di Sanremo every year since 1977. However, for Eurovision, the capacity of just 2,000 people – all of whom would be asked to sit down – may just make Sanremo an option that is not viable for a modern Eurovision Song Contest. The city currently has no other, bigger venues to host the Eurovision Song Contest 2022.
Ten cities now on the list
It is still very much early days in the race to host the Eurovision Song Contest 2022. The first six cities which expressed their desire to host the contest came in on Sunday morning. We wrote about them in greater detail yesterday, so check out our article from yesterday! Rome added themselves to the list this afternoon, with Florence and Rimini joining tonight, ahead of Sanremo.
The ten cities, including Sanremo, wishing to host Eurovision 2022 are:
- Turin
- Milan
- Pesaro
- Reggio Emilia
- Bologna
- Naples
- Rome
- Rimini
- Florence
- Sanremo
Måneskin won the Eurovision Song Contest 2021 with Zitti E Buoni, taking us to Italy for the first time since 1991. We will report as more bids to host come in! For this special occasion, you can watch Måneskin’s national final performance below!
