The festival was presented by singer Gianni Morandi with Paolo Kessisoglu, Luca Bizzarri, Belén Rodríguez and Elisabetta Canalis,[1] while artistic director was Gianmarco Mazzi.

Negotiations for his contract started in June 2010,[7] and on 6 October 2010, RAI's board of directors confirmed his role in the show and announced Elisabetta Canalis, Belén Rodríguez, Luca Bizzarri and Paolo Kessisoglu as co-presenters of the festival.

[5] The authors of the show were Simona Ercolani, Martino Clericetti, Ivano Balduini, Francesco Valitutti, Michele Ferrari, Gianni Morandi and Italian film director and writer Federico Moccia.

[15] The winners—Ida Massaro, Lorenzo Vizzini, Roberto Amadé, Erika Mineo, Eleonora Crupi, Ernesto De Luca, Martino Iacchetti and Gabriella Ferrone for the SanremoLab section, Trenincorsa and Ilaria Palmieri with Terre del sole for the SanremoDoc section—were announced on 24 November 2010.

[16][17] On 27 November 2010, a jury presided by Gianni Morandi selected two artists, Roberto Amadè and Gabriella Ferrone, among the ten winners, which became the first confirmed participants in the newcomers section of the Sanremo Music Festival 2011.

During the first step, auditioning artists were asked to uploaded a video including the proposed song on the official website of the festival, or to send a DVD containing it by ordinary mail.

The winners of the contest, Serena Abrami, Anansi, Btwins, Raphael Gualazzi, Marco Menichini and Micaela, were announced on 30 January 2011, during the TV programme Domenica in.

A ranking was obtained combining televoting with the points given by the Sanremo Festival Orchestra technical jury,[38] and the artists in the bottom two slots, Anansi with "Il sole dentro" and Gabriella Ferrone singing "Un pezzo d'estate", were eliminated.

[48] During the night, the public's vote determined the winner of the prize "Nata per unire" (English: Born to unify), which was completely unrelated to the outcome of the contest.

As in the previous night, the two artists receiving the lowest rating obtained combining the points given by the Sanremo Festival Orchestra technical jury and by the public's vote were eliminated.

[38] In the end of the night, the four newcomers still in competition performed their entries for a second time, and the winner was determined by combining the public's vote with the ratings given by the Sanremo Festival Orchestra technical jury.