Teatro Ariston
The Teatro Ariston sits on Via Giacomo Matteotti with the quiet confidence of a building that knows its own weight. Step inside and the first thing you notice is the ceiling — a 400-square-metre fresco by Genoese painter Carlo Cuneo arching over 1,909 red-toned seats, with hexagonal light clusters by Murano glassmakers Barovier e Toso casting a warm geometry across the stalls. It is a working theatre, not a monument, and it runs a full year-round season of music, theatre and dance.
Most visitors know it as the permanent home of the Sanremo Music Festival, which has been staged here since 1977. The stage itself is substantial — 24 metres wide, 16 deep, 21 high — and the pleated ceiling that gives the room its acoustic character is as considered as anything in the design.
💛 What travellers fall for
People who take the guided tour tend to mention the same surprise: the scale of the stage only registers when you're standing at floor level looking up into it. Book ahead — groups cap at around twelve — and arrive at the box office the thirty minutes before the tour begins. The top-floor Ariston Roof, with its three cinema screens and bar, is included.
The story behind Teatro Ariston
The site has hosted performance since before the current building existed. The earlier Principe Amedeo Theatre stood here until it was destroyed in World War II. In the 1940s, impresario Aristide Vacchino — whose father Carlo had introduced cinematography to Sanremo in the early 1900s — acquired the land and began building a replacement. Construction started in 1953, and the main auditorium opened on 31 May 1963 with a screening of Mutiny on the Bounty, making it the largest indoor theatre in Liguria at the time.
Architects Marco Lavarello and Dante Datta designed the building, with engineers Franco Ravera, Angelo Frisa and Gino Sacerdote on the project. Aristide Vacchino died in December 1980; his children Carla and Walter took over management. The Ariston Roof cinema complex was added in 1994.
Good to know
Tours run most of the year but close from mid-December to mid-March during the Sanremo Festival period. For Sanremo Music Festival tickets, plan months ahead — they sell out early. Palafiori underground parking is the closest option by car; the A10 highway connects easily from the Ligurian coast.
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What travellers say about Teatro Ariston
The Ariston Theatre offers a magical experience, especially knowing it's where the Sanremo Music Festival has been held for over 70 years. The theatre itself is amazing, spacious and comfortable. However, the cinema section is disappointing, with a small screen, uncomfortable chairs, and a lack of customer care from the cashiers.
Theatre is the temple of Italian music, the demise is put in the late 70s. Superb. What is not superb is the lady at the theatre bar who called her new colleague an idiot with cerebral palsy and said he was stressing her out because only someone with that syndrome alone could have placed bottles of Aperol at such a neat distance from one another. Very rude, very insulting, very much out of the 70s as the theater itself. Maybe she should ponder her own state of (psychic) health. That aside, I will never set foot back there if that is the view this institution subscribes to when dealing with other human beings.
We visited here for Sanremo Junior 2026 World Finals. Our daughter was one of the finalists. The place was incredible, the experience was unforgettable.
Parking well secured and managed. Rooms are very clean. Location supergood. Excelent and affordable restoran around place, old town very close. It was really good place to be.
It's a must to go if at Sanremo or close. I would go again for million times! Such a beautiful theatre!
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