Italy – Tiziano Ferro’s tour was a great Italian production, with an additional twelve concerts in major stadiums up and down the peninsula: three at San Siro in Milan (16, 17 and 19 June) and two at the Olympic Stadium in Rome (28 and 30 June). A total of nearly 500 thousand tickets were sold.
“I’m happy, not just for the figures, but for the way this is happening,” Tiziano Ferro said.
The production team invested in innovative scenery and entrusted the design of a complex lighting rig to lighting designer Giovanni Pinna. The Claypaky Mythos, Sharpy and Alpha Beam 700s included in the rig met the requirements, and their characteristics were essential for the lighting arrangements Pinna assigned them to.
Tiziano Ferro flew over the stage when he toured the stadiums for the first time two years ago.
This time round, the singer-songwriter from Latina changed the ‘element’ he used to impress his audience. He chose water, with a real waterfall and lots of sprays: “I wanted to avoid the risk of repeating myself. The part before was an ‘outside’ show. This latter part is ‘inside’ and features water, a changing element which symbolizes my career well. I’ve never made a record that was the same as another.”
Pinna confirmed: “The 2017 Tiziano Ferro Tour went off with a bang right from Lignano.” The show consisted of 29 songs in a playlist which Ferro himself defined as ‘generous’. It included tracks from his latest album, but also some ever present successes, like ‘Perdono’ and ‘Sere Nere’. The selection is the result of the last few years during which Ferro has lived in the United States.
“The production was inspired by major international productions, from Beyoncé to Sia, plus a touch of Ed Sheeran, Rihanna and Culture Club, without shunning a little risk. There was a great deal of preparation work, and a lot of clips (made by Clonwerk with the supervision of video director Romain Sabella), visual effects and large format video media. The work with the lights was very challenging too. The design process was managed with WYSIWYG programming software, given the tight schedule and adverse weather conditions during the rehearsals, and carefully integrated with images and video sequences.”
Sixteen Mythos units were arranged at the back, behind the moving screen, in two rows of eight lights on the ground behind the musicians. Another sixteen were placed in the centre, along the central wall consisting of a 43-foot-high vertical frame.
Eighty Sharpys were arranged on the ground, on the wall, along side the moving screen and along the two moving battens. There were so many that their movement or rotation enhanced and amplified the purity of the colours every time they came on, with playful criss-crossing and patterns of concentrated light beams, aligned like lasers.
Thirty-two lightweight, agile Alpha Beam 700s were hung in four rows of eight on the four back-lighting battens. Their concentrated, freely colourable, modulatable ACL beams produced fascinating, exciting, dynamic aerial effects right before the audience’s eyes.
“One hell of a show. It worked out really well. I worked on the lighting design from this winter/spring up to the first concert. I then handed the reins of the console over to MaDe (Marco De Nardi) to complete the tour for the new album ‘Il mestiere della vita'”.
Once the tour of the stadiums is over, Tiziano Ferro has already announced he will not resume in the autumn in the indoor stadiums. He said that next year he will devote himself to writing a new album, which could then be released in 2018.
“Not a hiatus, just the natural work cycle of an artist.”
A breach has opened on the TV front, where Tiziano has so far been absent, except for a few guest slots. “I have been contacted several times to do TV shows, and they always ask me for a proposal, but I’m not familiar with television. However, this tour has given me some ideas…”
SPECIFICATIONS:
Lighting service company: Agorà
Lighting designer: Giovanni Pinna
Lighting operator: Marco De Nardi
Set design: Gio Form
Videos and clips: Clonwerk
Video director: Romain Sabella