FantaSanremo / Sanremo

Overview

FantaSanremo is a viral betting game based on the Sanremo Music Festival, invented in 2020 by some friends in a bar, that has hooked millions of Italian players. The application makes you choose a team of five artists that will compete in the Ariston Theater in Sanremo, Italy, then nominate a captain. Based on what your artists will do, you will earn or lose points. The game gained virality in February 2023, inspiring numerous memes, reactions images and Photoshop edits on social media.

History

The FantaSanremo^[1] betting game was created in 2020 by a group of friends who met at the Bar "La Papalina" in Porto Sant'Elpidio, Italy. The game was inspired by Fanta-Game of Thrones,^[2] a fantasy game based on the television series of the same name. A website^[3] was later released in 2021, making the game available online for free.

Features

FantaSanremo is similar to football betting games,^[4] consisting of creating a virtual team with real characters (celebrities). In this case, the user has to deploy a team made up of five big artists participating in the Sanremo Festival, one of which must be appointed team captain. Each player has 100 baudi (in-game currency) available to buy the 5 competing artists. Each artist has a value, expressed in bauds, which, combined with that of his colleagues, cannot go beyond 100 bauds. The player can register his team in a league, i.e. a set of teams referring to a single member who will then express their own ranking. Each member can create a maximum of five teams.

Once the festival begins, the game generates various bonuses and penalties assigned to each artist based on his performance on the stage of the festival, which will affect the score of the artist himself and the general score at the end of the festival. The actions to garner bonuses or penalties are far from always serious, which leads to viral videos, like one posted by Twitter^[5] user @chenesannotutti on February 8th, 2023, showing a video of a singer putting on sunglasses and winning points in the game. The video received 75,700 views and 5,100 likes in one day (seen below).

“cosa devi fare? devo fare questo”E SI METTE GLI OCCHIALI DA SOLE LUI HA PROPRIO DETTO IL FANTASANREMO LO VINCO IO#Sanremo2023 pic.twitter.com/muHHkZXmMS

— sof🍀; 💐 sanremo era 💐 (@chenesannotutti) February 8, 2023

At the end of the event, a ranking is drawn up of both the artists in the competition, the teams created by the players and the leagues. The "Gloria Eterna" is the ultimate prize won by the artist and the team that has scored the most points.

Highlights

In 2021, The COVID-19 Pandemic prevented the Sarenmo Music Festival from happening. The developers decided then to create an online version of the game, reaching 50,000 teams^[6] registered online in that year. In 2022, the Sanremo Music Festival occurred from February 1st to 5th and was a turning point for the betting game, as fans challenged their favorite artists on social media to do some of the game's bonuses. The FantaSanremo term started to trend on Twitter that year.^[7]

Sanremo 2023

The 2023 edition of the Sanremo Music Festival^[8] started on February 7th and will go on until the 13th. As the event was drawing near, FantaSanremo players started to share memes on social media to describe their excitement to win the "Gloria Eterna" prize. The game's Twitter^[9] account used the "Are you going to sleep" meme to remind players to prepare their teams for the festival. The post garnered 144 likes and 15 retweets in two weeks (seen below).

Abbiamo messo tutti i promemoria possibili nella webapp ma lo diciamo anche così, non si sa mai.

Taggate i vostri amici scordarecci che ancora non hanno fatto la loro squadra, magari si danno una mossa!#squadre #leghe #attenzione #fantasanremo #fantasanremo2023 #sanremo2023 pic.twitter.com/d48cSShhCA

— FantaSanremo (@FantaSanremo) January 31, 2023

Fans celebrated their singers' bonuses on Twitter[10, like in the below post by @thank_you_18 on February 9th, 2023, referencing the Italian singer Rosa Chemical's performance at the Festival. The tweet garnered 15,000 views and 152 likes in one day.

Rosa Chemical stasera ha deciso di bruciare tutti facendo 1000 punti al Fantasanremo e twerkando sopra i suoi hater #Sanremo2023 pic.twitter.com/XAyPyxFTNr

— ✨thank you, next✨💐 (@thank_you_18) February 9, 2023

Search Interest

External References