Festivals in Italy

[Tom Lobo]

Are there big festivals in Italy, which are not in stadions?

 

I'm looking for a big or medium size festival in a cool location or on a cool ground.

 

Any  suggestions?

[cirez21]

hi! the question might be actually much harder to answer than it looks. 
I have no idea about the degree of information you have on the topic or whether you're italian or not, so my answer will be as if I was talking with someone who didn't know anything. apologies if I'll be redundant.

the biggest issue with Italy is that the country has a complete lack of festival culture. what are probably listed as italian biggest festivals (I'm guessing I-Days in Milan, Firenze Rocks and Lucca's Summer Festival) are "fake festivals", there is always only one stage with a supporting structure reminding of solo shows much more than a festival, the concerts are often in non-consecutive days and you'll hardly ever see multiple-day tickets being sold. these so called festivals are much more of a way to book acts going around european festivals by the usual italian biggest promoters, with Live Nation owning the former two and D'Alessandro & Galli the latter, and the third best, Vivo Concerti, that started doing something similar this year with their Milano Summer Festival. these four are the only places where you'll actually see all the biggest, stadium sized acts touring european festivals in the summer

talking about actual proper festivals, the biggest (and to a certain level, the only one) is Nameless Music Festival, a festival held near Lake Como. there are multiple stages, the location is quite amazing and it's growing year after year. the huge issue with this one is that it was born as (and the core audience is interested in) a strictly edm festival, so you'll see most acts in the mainstage being dj's and even though the organizers are trying to lean more towards other stuff with different kinds of acts (such as Justice, Kenya Grace, and 070 Shake in the past year), the response towards those has always been quite poor. the festival also has a second stage, but it's mainly for the biggest italian pop/hip hop acts

then you have Kappa Futur Festival in Turin, which is actually quite the big festival, but whereas Nameless is at least trying to lean towards something different than dj's, this is a strictly techno festival. if you liked techno you'd already know about it as it's one of the biggest in the world, if you don't like techno stay as far away as you can from this one ahah

 

last one to get a mention is Mi Ami in Milan, a strictly indie-rock festival with multiple stages etc but mostly filled with italian artists. they booked Phoenix last year but I feel like they were the only international act (might be wrong though)

 

and yeah I think that's pretty much it. there are a multitude of other smaller festivals, but they're mostly smaller versions of the biggest ones I've mentioned before, with usually just one stage etc. some names are La Prima Estate in Lido di Camaiore (indie/electronic), AMA in Bassano del Grappa, and Red Valley and Arabax in Sardinia (all three with a mix of electronic, pop, and rock acts). all of these are held in july/august, I'd suggest to give them a search but yeah, nothing groundbreaking

there are surely more than the mentioned, but I guess they're far smaller and I can't remember them off the top of my head currently
I hope I answered your question properly, feel free to ask anything if you want to know something more
:)

Edited 15 hours ago by cirez21

[Tom Lobo]

1 hour ago, cirez21 said:

hi! the question might be actually much harder to answer than it looks. 
I have no idea about the degree of information you have on the topic or whether you're italian or not, so my answer will be as if I was talking with someone who didn't know anything. apologies if I'll be redundant.

the biggest issue with Italy is that the country has a complete lack of festival culture. what are probably listed as italian biggest festivals (I'm guessing I-Days in Milan, Firenze Rocks and Lucca's Summer Festival) are "fake festivals", there is always only one stage with a supporting structure reminding of solo shows much more than a festival, the concerts are often in non-consecutive days and you'll hardly ever see multiple-day tickets being sold. these so called festivals are much more of a way to book acts going around european festivals by the usual italian biggest promoters, with Live Nation owning the former two and D'Alessandro & Galli the latter, and the third best, Vivo Concerti, that started doing something similar this year with their Milano Summer Festival. these four are the only places where you'll actually see all the biggest, stadium sized acts touring european festivals in the summer

talking about actual proper festivals, the biggest (and to a certain level, the only one) is Nameless Music Festival, a festival held near Lake Como. there are multiple stages, the location is quite amazing and it's growing year after year. the huge issue with this one is that it was born as (and the core audience is interested in) a strictly edm festival, so you'll see most acts in the mainstage being dj's and even though the organizers are trying to lean more towards other stuff with different kinds of acts (such as Justice, Kenya Grace, and 070 Shake in the past year), the response towards those has always been quite poor. the festival also has a second stage, but it's mainly for the biggest italian pop/hip hop acts

then you have Kappa Futur Festival in Turin, which is actually quite the big festival, but whereas Nameless is at least trying to lean towards something different than dj's, this is a strictly techno festival. if you liked techno you'd already know about it as it's one of the biggest in the world, if you don't like techno stay as far away as you can from this one ahah

 

last one to get a mention is Mi Ami in Milan, a strictly indie-rock festival with multiple stages etc but mostly filled with italian artists. they booked Phoenix last year but I feel like they were the only international act (might be wrong though)

 

and yeah I think that's pretty much it. there are a multitude of other smaller festivals, but they're mostly smaller versions of the biggest ones I've mentioned before, with usually just one stage etc. some names are La Prima Estate in Lido di Camaiore (indie/electronic), AMA in Bassano del Grappa, and Red Valley and Arabax in Sardinia (all three with a mix of electronic, pop, and rock acts). all of these are held in july/august, I'd suggest to give them a search but yeah, nothing groundbreaking

there are surely more than the mentioned, but I guess they're far smaller and I can't remember them off the top of my head currently
I hope I answered your question properly, feel free to ask anything if you want to know something more
:)

wooooow....what an answer.

 

so much infos, great. I wished that there would be a festival for me in italy. I´m from germany and the last 15 years I have been to Sziget 13 times and the last years also to werchter & last this year the first time to inmusic in zagreb.

 

But I wanted to go to a festival in italy. For the nice people, the great cappucinos, the food and the weather....

 

And now - with all your datas - I don´t think, that its an option for me. The only festival, that would be one for me is the one with only edm. I like some edm...but not much enough.

 

Thank you very much for your detailed answer. I think, that you are from italy? I can´t understand, that the italian people don´t have cool festivals. The most italians I met where cool people with a good relationship to music, especially livemusic.

 

So I have to look further on to some new spots....

[gigi21]

12 hours ago, cirez21 said:

hi! the question might be actually much harder to answer than it looks. 
I have no idea about the degree of information you have on the topic or whether you're italian or not, so my answer will be as if I was talking with someone who didn't know anything. apologies if I'll be redundant.

the biggest issue with Italy is that the country has a complete lack of festival culture. what are probably listed as italian biggest festivals (I'm guessing I-Days in Milan, Firenze Rocks and Lucca's Summer Festival) are "fake festivals", there is always only one stage with a supporting structure reminding of solo shows much more than a festival, the concerts are often in non-consecutive days and you'll hardly ever see multiple-day tickets being sold. these so called festivals are much more of a way to book acts going around european festivals by the usual italian biggest promoters, with Live Nation owning the former two and D'Alessandro & Galli the latter, and the third best, Vivo Concerti, that started doing something similar this year with their Milano Summer Festival. these four are the only places where you'll actually see all the biggest, stadium sized acts touring european festivals in the summer

talking about actual proper festivals, the biggest (and to a certain level, the only one) is Nameless Music Festival, a festival held near Lake Como. there are multiple stages, the location is quite amazing and it's growing year after year. the huge issue with this one is that it was born as (and the core audience is interested in) a strictly edm festival, so you'll see most acts in the mainstage being dj's and even though the organizers are trying to lean more towards other stuff with different kinds of acts (such as Justice, Kenya Grace, and 070 Shake in the past year), the response towards those has always been quite poor. the festival also has a second stage, but it's mainly for the biggest italian pop/hip hop acts

then you have Kappa Futur Festival in Turin, which is actually quite the big festival, but whereas Nameless is at least trying to lean towards something different than dj's, this is a strictly techno festival. if you liked techno you'd already know about it as it's one of the biggest in the world, if you don't like techno stay as far away as you can from this one ahah

 

last one to get a mention is Mi Ami in Milan, a strictly indie-rock festival with multiple stages etc but mostly filled with italian artists. they booked Phoenix last year but I feel like they were the only international act (might be wrong though)

 

and yeah I think that's pretty much it. there are a multitude of other smaller festivals, but they're mostly smaller versions of the biggest ones I've mentioned before, with usually just one stage etc. some names are La Prima Estate in Lido di Camaiore (indie/electronic), AMA in Bassano del Grappa, and Red Valley and Arabax in Sardinia (all three with a mix of electronic, pop, and rock acts). all of these are held in july/august, I'd suggest to give them a search but yeah, nothing groundbreaking

there are surely more than the mentioned, but I guess they're far smaller and I can't remember them off the top of my head currently
I hope I answered your question properly, feel free to ask anything if you want to know something more
🙂

I'd also mention Ypsigrock, a nice boutique indie festival in Sicily in early August, C2C in Autumn in Turin (mainly electronic), Spring Attitude in Rome in September.

But they're all small festivals

[charlierc]

I went to Milano Rocks in 2018 as a visitor to Italy and it was billed and organised as a festival but yeah, as said above, it is a one stage environment that was to facilitate 3 concerts. I went to The National's day but there were also one day shows by Imagine Dragons and 30 Seconds to Mars.

 

Firenze Rocks and Milano i-Days have similar vibe by the look of them. I don't know if there's an option to buy tickets covering multiple days for these - seem to recall there was but given I went in 2018, memory's fuzzy on that score.

[gigi21]

1 hour ago, charlierc said:

I went to Milano Rocks in 2018 as a visitor to Italy and it was billed and organised as a festival but yeah, as said above, it is a one stage environment that was to facilitate 3 concerts. I went to The National's day but there were also one day shows by Imagine Dragons and 30 Seconds to Mars.

 

Firenze Rocks and Milano i-Days have similar vibe by the look of them. I don't know if there's an option to buy tickets covering multiple days for these - seem to recall there was but given I went in 2018, memory's fuzzy on that score.

Yes, as said above, all the big italian "festivals" aren't proper festivals but a series of big events on one stage.