San Marino was represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 with the song "Stripper" performed by Achille Lauro. The Sammarinese broadcaster, San Marino RTV (SMRTV), organised a new national final concept entitled Una voce per San Marino ("A voice for San Marino") to decide their representative. The event consisted of 299 emerging and nine established artists competing over a three-month period from December 2021 through February 2022 for the opportunity to represent the nation at the contest. The winning entry "Stripper" was written by Lauro, Daniele Dezi, Daniele Mungai, Davide Petrella, Federico De Marinis, Francesco Viscovo, Gregorio Calculli, Marco Lanciotti, Matteo Ciceroni, Mattia Cutolo and Simon Pietro Manzari.
To promote the entry, Lauro released the song as a digital download, lyric video and a music video consisting of the performance of the entry at Una voce per San Marino. A promotional tour was initially scheduled, but appearances were subsequently canceled due to the rise in COVID-19 cases occurring at the time. San Marino was drawn to compete in the second semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 which took place on 12 May 2022. Performing during the show seventh in the running order, "Stripper" was not announced among the top 10 entries of its semi-final and therefore did not qualify to compete in the final. It was later revealed that San Marino placed 14th out of the 18 participating countries in the semi-final with 50 points.
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Background
Prior to the 2022 contest, San Marino had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 11 times since their first entry in 2008. The nation's debut entry in the 2008 contest, "Complice" performed by Miodio, failed to qualify for the final and placed last in the semi-final it competed in. San Marino subsequently did not participate in both the 2009 and 2010 contests, citing financial difficulties. They returned in 2011 with Italian singer Senit performing "Stand By", which also failed to take the nation to the final. From 2012 to 2014, San Marino sent Valentina Monetta to the contest on three consecutive occasions, which made her the first singer to participate in three consecutive contests since Udo Jürgens, who competed in 1964, 1965 and 1966 for Austria. Monetta's first two entries failed to qualify San Marino to the final, however in 2014, she managed to bring the nation to the final for the first time with "Maybe", placing 24th. Following four consecutive non-qualifying years, San Marino qualified for the final for its second time in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019, where Serhat represented the nation for his second time and finished in 19th place in the final with "Say Na Na Na". For the 2020 contest, Senhit and her song "Freaky!" were to represent the nation, though following its cancelation, San Marino re-selected Senhit for 2021. Her song, "Adrenalina", which she performed alongside American rapper Flo Rida, qualified for the final, eventually placing 22nd out of the 26 entries. San Marino RTV (SMRTV) confirmed the nation's participation in the 2022 contest on 5 April 2021, at the same time also revealing that they intended to select their entry through a national final entitled Una voce per San Marino.
Before Eurovision
Una voce per San Marino
On 5 April 2021, as part of the release of a 2021–2022 tourism events calendar introduced by the government of San Marino, SMRTV confirmed the nation's participation in the 2022 contest and the introduction of Una voce per San Marino ("A voice for San Marino"), a new national final format to select the nation's entry. This marked the second time that the nation had opted to select their entry with a national final format, the first time being in 2018 with 1in360.
Una voce per San Marino was held between December 2021 and February 2022. Interested artists could apply to partake in the event through the official Una voce per San Marino website, which was open for submissions until 8 January 2022. There were no restrictions on the nationality of the performer nor the language of the song, though all artists and songs had to comply with the rules of the Eurovision Song Contest as set by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). At the close of the application window, all selected artists were divided into two categories: Emerging and Established. Emerging artists attended an academy in the Teatro Titano in the City of San Marino from 13 to 17 December 2021 and 3–11 January 2022, acting as preliminary castings. Then, from 13 to 17 February 2022, a series of semi-finals decided the nine Emerging acts that moved on to the final. Established artists, numbering nine in total as well, were directly invited to the final by Media Evolution SRL. Aside from the first place act becoming the Sammarinese representative at Eurovision, the first, second and third placings of the final were also awarded €7000, €2000 and €1000, respectively.
Voting for the Emerging artists shows was performed by a seven-member jury. The first four members of the jury for this category, announced on 16 November 2021, were Emilio Munda, Roberta Faccani, Roberto Costa and Steve Lyon. The remaining three jury members for the category were announced on 31 December 2021, and were Maurizio Raimo, Nabuk and Mimmo Paganelli.
A submission period was opened by SMRTV on 22 September 2021 for emerging artists and composers to submit their entries. By 16 November 2021, the broadcaster announced it had received over 200 applications, particularly from Germany, Russia and Sweden, but also from other European countries, the United States and Australia. Near the close of the submission period, SMRTV reported that they had received 585 applications overall, out of which 299 were selected to take part in the emerging acts round. The emerging acts auditions took place between 13 and 17 December 2021 and 3–11 January 2022. From December and over the course of two months, the 299 participants took part in the auditions (though only 282 were listed). From the emerging acts round, 60 international entrants and six Sammarinese had qualified for the semi-finals and they were revealed on 17 January 2022. Highlights from the auditions were then broadcast on San Marino RTV over three consecutive Fridays from 14 January to 28 January 2022.
Promotion
To promote "Stripper" as the entry for San Marino, the song was released on all digital platforms on 4 March 2022, coinciding with the release of a lyric video. A promotional music video of the performance during the final Una voce per San Marino had previously been released on the YouTube channel of the Eurovision Song Contest on 23 February. The song was due to be performed at the 26 March Eurovision Party in Barcelona, but was unable to after members of the band contracted COVID-19. Lauro indicated that due to the inability to use playbacks, he would be unable to perform without the band. The next day, SMRTV announced that they had opted to not have the singer perform at the Eurovision in Concert event on 9 April in Amsterdam either or at any other live pre-Eurovision events, citing the rise in COVID-19 cases occurring at the time.
A free "Meet & Greet" for fans was scheduled for 23 April at Teatro Concordia in Borgo Maggiore, San Marino, however, the event was postponed shortly after its announcement, with staff citing the entrant's rehearsal schedule and security as being factors. A previously announced press conference on 22 April, the day before, did take place at the Palazzo Pubblico, where Lauro spoke about the link Eurovision creates between countries.
At Eurovision
The Eurovision Song Contest 2022 took place at the PalaOlimpico in Turin, Italy, and consisted of two semi-finals held on the respective dates of 10 and 12 May and the final on 14 May 2022. According to the Eurovision rules, all participating countries, except the host nation and the "Big Five", consisting of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, are required to qualify from one of two semi-finals to compete for the final; the top 10 countries from their respective semi-finals progress to the final. Prior to the semi-final allocation draw, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) split the competing countries into six different pots based on voting patterns from previous contests as determined by the contest's televoting partner Digame, with the aim of reducing the chance of neighbourly voting between countries while also increasing suspense during the voting process. On 25 January 2022, an allocation draw was held at Palazzo Madama in Turin, which placed each nation into one of the two semi-finals and determined which half of the show they would perform in. Therein, it was announced that San Marino was scheduled to perform in the first half of the second semi-final of the contest, to be held on 12 May. Once all the competing entries for the 2022 contest had been released, the running order for the semi-finals was decided by the producers of the contest to prevent similar songs from being placed next to each other. San Marino was set to perform seventh, following the entry from the Malta and before the entry from Australia. In San Marino, the two semi-finals and the final were broadcast on San Marino RTV and Radio San Marino with commentary by Lia Fiorio and Gigi Restivo.
Performances
Achille took part in rehearsals on 2 and 5 May, followed by dress rehearsals on 11 and 12 May 2022. This included the jury show where the five-member juries of eighteen of the participating countries, responsible for 50 percent of each country's respective vote, watched and voted on the competing entries of the second semi-final. The performance of "Stripper" saw Lauro dressed in a sheer bodysuit wearing a fur boa and cowboy hat. Two members of his band were in cages, while the guitarist interacted with Lauro throughout the performance, including kissing the singer. At one point, Lauro rides a velvet pink mechanical bull in the performance, which also featured fireworks. Many media outlets noted the positive response to the same sex kiss as a historic moment in Eurovision. At the end of the voting phase for the second semi-final, San Marino was not announced as a qualifier for the final. It was later revealed that the nation placed 14th out of the 18 competing nations in the second semi-final with a total of 50 points.
Voting
Voting during the three shows involved each country awarding two sets of points from 1–8, 10 and 12: one from their expert jury and the other from televoting. Each nation's jury consisted of five music industry professionals who are citizens of the country they represent. The jury judged each entry based on vocal capacity, the stage performance, the song's composition and originality and the overall impression by the act. No member of a national jury was permitted to be connected in any way to any of the competing acts in such a way that they cannot vote impartially and independently. Labiuse served as the Sammarinese spokesperson, announcing the votes awarded by the Sammarinese jury during the final. Below is a breakdown of points awarded to San Marino and awarded by San Marino in both the second semi-final and the final of the contest, and the breakdown of the jury voting and televoting conducted during the two shows.
In a statement released during the broadcast of the final, the EBU revealed that six countries, including San Marino, were found to have irregular jury voting patterns during the second semi-final. Consequently, these countries were given substitute aggregated jury scores for both the second semi-final and the final (shown above), calculated from the corresponding jury scores of countries with historically similar voting patterns as determined by the pots for the semi-final allocation draw held in January. As such, San Marino's jury votes were determined based on those from Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Malta and Portugal. Their televoting scores were unaffected. The Flemish broadcaster VRT later reported that the juries involved had made agreements to vote for each other's entries to secure qualification to the final.
On 19 May, the EBU released a further statement clarifying the irregularities in voting patterns. This confirmed that the six countries involved had consistently scored each other's entries disproportionately highly in the second semi-final: the Sammarinese jury, as well as the juries from Azerbaijan, Georgia and Romania, had each ranked the other five countries' entries as their top five, proving beyond statistical coincidence that they had colluded to achieve a higher placing. This prompted the suspension of San Marino's intended jury scores (shown below) in favour of the EBU's calculated aggregate scores, presented above.