The show featured guests including Luciano Ligabue, Cat Stevens, Damien Rice, Paolo Nutini, Stromae, Gino Paoli, Raffaella Carrà, Laetitia Casta and Rufus Wainwright.

[1] Following the success of the Sanremo Music Festival 2013, since May of the same year, negotiations started to confirm Fabio Fazio and Luciana Littizzetto as the presenters for the contest in 2014.

[2] In September 2013, Fazio confirmed he would present the 64th Sanremo Music Festival, during an interview released to Italian newspaper Il Messaggero.

[9] On 15 November 2014, the number of acts was reduced to 40 by a commission composed of singer-songwriters Ron and Omar Pedrini, and rapper Dargen D'Amico.

[13] Starting from 6 December 2013, live auditions were held in Rome, in front of a commission composed of president Mauro Pagani, Claudio Fasulo, Andrea Guerra, Massimo Martelli and Stefano Senardi.

[14] The selected acts and songs—Diodato with "Babilonia", Filippo Graziani with "Le cose belle", Rocco Hunt with "Nu juorno buono", The Niro with "1969", Veronica De Simone with "Nuvole che passano" and Zibba with "Senza di te"—were announced on 13 December 2013.

[37] The night was opened by a monologue by Fazio, which was interrupted by the suicide threat of a man protesting against unemployment and economic conditions in Campania.

[38] After returning to the show, Fazio paid tribute to Italian singer-songwriter Fabrizio De André, together with his widow, Dori Ghezzi.

The first musical guest of the night was actor Claudio Santamaria, promoting the fiction Non è mai troppo tardi, based on the story of Italian school teacher Alberto Manzi.

The Kessler Twins later appeared on stage, singing and dancing the track "Quelli belli come noi" with co-presenter Luciana Littizzetto.

[41] The international guest of the night was Rufus Wainwright, which appeared onstage at the end of Big Artists competition, before the launch of the performances for the acts of the Newcomers' section.

[41] During the third night, the selected song of each act competing in the Big Artists section was performed again, and a first ranking was compiled, based on public votes only, with Francesco Renga's "Vivendo adesso" in the first spot.

[36][43] At the end of the night, the last four acts of the Newcomers' section performed their entries and, after being voted by journalists and by the public, two of them advanced to the final round of the competition, while the remaining ones were eliminated.

[43] The show started with a tribute to Claudio Abbado, with musicians of the Philharmonic Orchestra of the La Fenice opera house, directed by Diego Matheuz, performing the overture from Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro.

At the end of her piece, German dancer Dergin Tokmak, which lost the use of his legs as a child, performed an acrobatic dance with his crutches.

[47] The show began with Marco Mengoni performing a cover of Sergio Endrigo's "Io che amo solo te".

[46] The international guest of the night was Scottish singer Paolo Nutini, who performed a cover of Lucio Dalla's "Caruso", as well as his own songs "Candy" and "Scream (Funk My Life Up)".

[36][49] The night was opened by Terence Hill, which appeared on stage wearing the clothes of his character Don Matteo, from the television series with same name.

[49] Despite being disqualified from the competition, Riccardo Sinigallia was allowed to perform his entry "Prima di andare via", at the end of the first round of the final.