Since then, the organisation has decided to turn the Radio Italia Live concert into a regular event at the beginning of Milan's summer calendar, and today it is one of the few public showcases for Italian music with top-ranking performers. In 2014, Biagio Antonacci, Laura Pausini, Elisa, Negramaro, Edoardo Bennato, Emma, Claudio Baglioni and Alex Britti were on stage.
Giancarlo Toscani, who was in charge of the lighting design, graphic design and art direction, explained reports, "The first to the third years were marked by continuous project development: using Milan's most central square means complying with loads of safety, environmental, and light and noise level regulations, all against the clock. Despite these limitations, this year we strongly desired to give the event a very 'live' look, by interpreting each of the three pieces per artist with a specific lighting design and at the same time enhancing the venue, the audience and the orchestra."
Given the tight deadlines and the difficulty of organizing rehearsals in Piazza Duomo, it was necessary to prepare most of the art and lighting design in a studio, as well as the stage arrangement and entire rig design.
Giancarlo Toscani supervised every aspect of the artistic process and harmonized the difficult coexistence between a large LED wall behind the artists and the lighting effects: "The LED wall behind the artists was essential for displaying some advertisements, but it forced me to put the lights in certain places to 'break through' the video. In these cases, it is essential to choose lights that stand out: the 92 Clay Paky Sharpys and 20 Sharpy Washes were a real godsend for this."
Another big problem was the transition from dusk to darkness, which was solved by updating the LED wall brightness level every fifteen minutes "in order to smooth out the change between daytime and night-time viewing without rifts. This was only possible by managing the video content completely independently: generally speaking, I am really happy that the management of the LED wall was entirely entrusted to the lighting designer."
The lights for the Radio Italia Live concert were provided by Audiolux. The event was produced by Radio Italia, in the person of Gaetano Notaro, and directed by Lele Biscussi.
(Jim Evans)
