Fact #131760
When:
Short story:
On their Rock Or Bust tour, AC/DC play at Autodromo Ferrari, Imola, Italy, Europe, supported by Vintage Trouble.Full article:
Claudio Trotta (promoter, Barley Arts, Italy) : I’ve worked with AC/DC since 14 September 1991, a Monsters Of Rock show at Festa de L'Unità, Modena, Italy. Every show they have done in Italy since then has been with us.
For this tour, the demand was ever larger than it has been in the past, so I was determined to get the largest, most suitable venue that was available. Originally, my plan was to play two shows, but they didn’t have the time to do that.
I considered the San Siro stadium in Milan, and the Circus Maximus in Rome, and a few others but The Autodromo Ferrari at Imola has a history of doing rock shows, and Brian Johnson the singer of AC/DC is a big fan of fast cars. In fact, I had seen him on a tv show driving a Lamborghini at the track in Imola, so I took that as a sign, I knew he’d want to play there.
The venue sits in the middle of a large green area. Most of the audience was standing on the concrete, but we also had a hill overlooking the site where we had 20,000 people seated for the same price.
We drew 90,000 people, but there was a demand for at least 150,000 tickets so we could have done two nights if the band had time. We sold out in just three days in December. I decided to sell 40,000 tickets through physical box offices, rather than just put everything on the web, because I hate secondary ticket re-sellers and fight them in every way I can. I also limited the number to four tickets per buyer.
We opened the doors three hours in advance, we had areas for young kids, a refreshing area, we paid particular attention to the quality of food and drinks on sale, because we don’t want to treat the audience like numbers but like human beings. It’s very easy to forget that when you’re doing a large show.
We had seven screens, seven delay towers, which we added to AC/DC’s production, because we wanted the people to be as comfortable as possible, to get the best experience possible. We also had a special train running to the stadium. We have an exclusivity for the next three years to do shows at the Autodromo, so we are working hard to make sure people will want to come back again.
My outstanding memory of the show is of watching from the hill, where I could see all the illuminated red bull’s horns. The apparently sold about 50,000 of those horns so, during the show, you could see all these little glowing red horns on the heads of the crowd.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Audience magazine, Sep 205)
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For this tour, the demand was ever larger than it has been in the past, so I was determined to get the largest, most suitable venue that was available. Originally, my plan was to play two shows, but they didn’t have the time to do that.
I considered the San Siro stadium in Milan, and the Circus Maximus in Rome, and a few others but The Autodromo Ferrari at Imola has a history of doing rock shows, and Brian Johnson the singer of AC/DC is a big fan of fast cars. In fact, I had seen him on a tv show driving a Lamborghini at the track in Imola, so I took that as a sign, I knew he’d want to play there.
The venue sits in the middle of a large green area. Most of the audience was standing on the concrete, but we also had a hill overlooking the site where we had 20,000 people seated for the same price.
We drew 90,000 people, but there was a demand for at least 150,000 tickets so we could have done two nights if the band had time. We sold out in just three days in December. I decided to sell 40,000 tickets through physical box offices, rather than just put everything on the web, because I hate secondary ticket re-sellers and fight them in every way I can. I also limited the number to four tickets per buyer.
We opened the doors three hours in advance, we had areas for young kids, a refreshing area, we paid particular attention to the quality of food and drinks on sale, because we don’t want to treat the audience like numbers but like human beings. It’s very easy to forget that when you’re doing a large show.
We had seven screens, seven delay towers, which we added to AC/DC’s production, because we wanted the people to be as comfortable as possible, to get the best experience possible. We also had a special train running to the stadium. We have an exclusivity for the next three years to do shows at the Autodromo, so we are working hard to make sure people will want to come back again.
My outstanding memory of the show is of watching from the hill, where I could see all the illuminated red bull’s horns. The apparently sold about 50,000 of those horns so, during the show, you could see all these little glowing red horns on the heads of the crowd.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Audience magazine, Sep 205)