1MNEXT — Rome May Day Contest

A contest opening the doors to Italy's largest stage

In the landscape of emerging Italian music, few events hold the symbolic power of 1MNEXT, the contest linked to the Rome May Day Concert. Conceived and produced by iCompany, the same firm that manages the event promoted by CGIL, CISL, and UIL, the competition has been running since 2015. Each year, it selects three artists from thousands of applications across the country to perform on the stage of Piazza San Giovanni in Laterano, in the heart of Rome, Lazio.

The stakes are high: the Concertone is one of Europe's most-watched musical events, with hundreds of thousands of people in the square and a live television and radio broadcast reaching the entire nation. For an independent project, stepping onto that stage means transitioning from small clubs to a massive audience in a single day.

How the selection works

Registration is completely free and is done online by filling out the form on the contest's official website. All musical genres are welcome—singer-songwriter, pop, rock, indie, electronic, rap—but covers are not allowed: participants must compete exclusively with original, unreleased tracks. The process consists of several phases:

• Registration: Opens in December and closes in mid-February of the concert year.
• Pre-selection: The Artistic Direction evaluates the material and announces the projects admitted to the next phase in March.
• Online public voting: For several weeks, the public votes for their favorite track on the contest website.
• Closed-door live finals: In April, at least ten projects perform live before the jury.
• May Day: The three winners perform in Piazza San Giovanni, and one is crowned the overall winner.

The weight of the two judging bodies is precisely defined: the online public jury accounts for 25% of the final score, while the quality jury—composed of industry professionals, journalists, and experts, under the artistic direction of Massimo Bonelli—accounts for the remaining 75%. This balance is designed to reward artistic quality without ignoring public feedback.

A showcase that has launched careers

Over the years, 1MNEXT has established itself as one of the most reliable observers of new Italian music. The contest has hosted projects that have since become fixtures in the national circuit, and each edition provides a sincere snapshot of the local scenes: singer-songwriters, bands, electronic experiments, female voices, and contemporary dialects all coexist within the same group of finalists.

The bond with the city

The contest is inextricably linked to Rome and its May Day tradition. Piazza San Giovanni in Laterano, between the Esquilino and Celio districts, in the shadow of the Basilica of St. John, has been the symbolic site of the Italian Labor Day celebration since 1990. The stage is the centerpiece of a day that is simultaneously a concert, a civic ritual, and a gathering: 1MNEXT represents its youngest and most curious side, the one looking toward the future.

Why follow it

• Because it is free for both participants and those attending the Concertone.
• Because it allows you to preview artists who will feature in the following summer's festivals.
• Because the online voting phase is open to everyone, turning listeners into active participants in the selection.
• Because it showcases the real musical Italy, the one born outside the mainstream circuits.