In Milan the use of the La Maura Hippodrome for concerts has become a political issue, with representatives of the majority and minority demanding that it no longer be used to host large events. After the hailstorm Bad Bunny is silent. Instead, Bruno Sconocchia, president of the trade association AssoConcerti, and Roberto De Luca, president and CEO of Live Nation Italia, speak, and both oppose the idea that the tragedy was close and indeed say they are convinced that La Maura is a suitable place for large events.
As is known, on Saturday evening adverse weather conditions forced the organizers to evacuate the approximately 80 thousand people present at the second Bad Bunny concert at the La Maura Hippodrome in the San Siro area of Milan. At first the performance was interrupted in the hope that after about ten minutes the weather conditions would improve. Instead they got worse and the evacuation order was given which took place under a hailstorm, with the ground made slippery by the rain and the streets outside half-flooded.
“The violent wave of bad weather, accompanied by an equally violent hailstorm, which hit the city of Milan shortly after 9pm, also hit the concert of the Puerto Rican musician Bad Bunny who was performing at the San Siro Hippodrome”, reads a note from the Fire Brigade. «Several spectators were injured, hit in particular on the head due to the size of the hail and rescued by 118 personnel. The concert was suspended. The arena remained guarded by the organizers and the police.”
Many complained about insufficient communication from the workers present, the evacuation methods, the lack of security, the scarcity of places to take shelter, the “funnel” at the exit. The criticisms for what happened add to those already expressed in recent years about the Maura, which has become the place par excellence that hosts events in Milan that involve public participation that not even a stadium like San Siro can contain. Some of the problems reported are the scarcity of entrances and exits, the fact that with a capacity of 78,500 people you can hear and see little if you are far from the pit, the prices of tickets and drinks, the queues for the entrance and the bar, the use of tokens, the scarcity of free water points, the earth that rises when people jump making the air unbreathable, the lack of parking, the roads around the structure, the subway stop which is closed.
The criticisms were particularly harsh in the case of Cesare Cremonini's concert on June 10th bringing the singer of Alaska Baby to write on Instagram that «these concerts were held 50 years ago without screens, without a 100-meter walkway and with the audio technology of our grandparents. The audience didn't hear shit but they understood what was happening. Today the public has the same ego as the artists. That's why I want to stop this car. The concept of “big event” is wonderful but it leads astray compared to current music.”
In Milan there has been discussion for some time about the use of the racecourse and after Bad Bunny the political case has reignited. “For years, Milanese committees, citizens and politicians have been denouncing the dangerous and insecure conditions of allowing concerts to be held at the Maura with 80,000 spectators”, writes Alessandro Giungi of the Democratic Party, therefore the majority city councilor, on Instagram. «I personally spoke two weeks ago in the City Council to ask that the Maura be finally designated as a park. Yesterday there was a risk of tragedy. Unfortunately announced.”
It is a concept that Giungi reiterated in his speech yesterday in the City Council where he said that “there was a risk of tragedy at the Maura concert on Saturday evening” and that in the face of the weather alert “we wanted to risk 80 thousand people crowded into a space in no way suitable to contain such a mass of people”. There were, he says, “40 people bruised, eight rescued in an ambulance, two in hospital with a suspected fracture”.
He is not the only voice in the majority against the use of the racecourse for large concerts. “It's not a suitable place for events of 80,000 people,” he told Republic Giulia Pelucchi, PD president of Municipality 8. «There are videos of ambulances struggling to get through. We already have San Siro and the other racecourse (the smaller one in Piazzale dello Sport, where this year for example Florence + The Machine played, ed), La Maura must be spared: we hope that the Municipality will be able to purchase the area to make it a public park.”
For some time there has been the idea that the Municipality could buy the Maura land from Snaitech, transforming the racecourse into a park and after Saturday evening the pressure on the council chaired by Giuseppe Sala increased, with Forza Italia calling for the resignation of the deputy mayor Anna Scavuzzo and the opposition councilor Alessandro De Chirico (FI) asking for decisive action. “Fortunately no one died, but those who were present at the Bad Bunny concert tell of a car that was inadequate for the emergency.” De Chirico hopes that «the new ownership of the Milan racecourses will interrupt any relationship with the organizers of the concerts, making common sense prevail over economic interests».
The response to the criticism came both from the CEO of Live Nation Italia, organizer of the two Bad Bunny shows, and from the category representative of which Live Nation is part, namely Bruno Scanocchia of AssoConcerti. «Contrary to what I read in the statements of some politicians, Saturday evening was the practical demonstration of the level of professionalism achieved by the organizers and of the fact that the space of the La Maura Hippodrome is, thanks also to the implementations adopted in recent years with the collaboration of all parties involved, a place perfectly suited to hosting events of this size», writes Scanocchia in a statement. «Eighty thousand people are the number of inhabitants of a medium-sized Italian city. Well, I believe that the Emergency Department of that city would be very happy, at the end of a day which among other things saw an extraordinary emergency event occur, to be able to record only one intervention, for a broken elbow following a slip”.
Beyond the events of Saturday evening, for the president of AssoConcerti the fact that people continue to participate in large numbers at major events means that the experience has not been negative (at this link a round of opinions from the organizers on this and other topics related to live shows in Italy). «One hundred and sixty thousand people have consciously chosen to participate in the two Bad Bunny shows scheduled at the La Maura Hippodrome, and the vast majority of them are very happy with the choice made. Unfortunately, the party on the second day was interrupted due to force majeure, but the spectators' complaints were not linked to the quality of the show or the arena chosen to host it, but, on the contrary, dictated by the impossibility of rescheduling the show. The soloists are there to criticize in the name of the public, but the real public instead asks to have the opportunity to participate in that experience again.”
«In conclusion», writes Scanocchia, «it seems indisputable to me that Milan, also thanks to spaces such as the La Maura Hippodrome, has definitively entered the circuit of major international events, which ensure the city great visibility, attract quality cultural tourism from abroad too, with important economic effects on the area, but above all offer thousands of people moments of sociality, meeting, sharing, integration».
Roberto De Luca of Live Nation Italia also expressed his opinion on what happened. In an interview granted yesterday to Fabrizio Guglielmini of Corriere della Sera provided a reassuring version of what happened. «The forced exodus plan worked very well, so much so that only seven people were taken to hospital, mainly for head injuries; for the rest we managed the flow of almost 80 thousand people with 700 of our staff present at the racecourse”. The runoff began about 9:30 p.m. “In less than an hour we managed to manage the exit of people, while complete traffic in the area was re-established a few minutes before 11pm.”
According to De Luca, stating that the La Maura Hippodrome would not be suitable to host such events “is a gratuitous observation because there is nothing to explain, the facts speak for themselves also from the point of view of the evacuation times which were very rapid”. The racecourse “therefore remains a functional space to host large musical events”.
«We stayed at the racecourse until 2 in the morning to try to understand if the show could be made up the following day, that is, last night (Sunday, ed), but unfortunately we didn't have enough security personnel to reprogram it”, explains De Luca. “We also spoke with the police and in the end the decision was made to definitively cancel the concert.”
Tickets will be refunded. “The safety of everyone present is always our top priority,” we read in a post published after the event by the Live Nation Italia account. «We thank you for your patience, understanding and cooperation during the evacuation and we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused. All ticket holders will receive a full refund (ticket price + presale fees). Further details will be communicated in the coming days.”
Unlike other artists who on similar occasions have used social media to communicate with fans and express regret for the cancellation of the concert and for the inconvenience suffered by the public, Bad Bunny has not yet expressed his opinion on what happened. The only sign of life on his Instagram profile (where he actually communicates very little and the feed is reset) is a story dedicated to the football World Cup final between Spain and Argentina which was held the day after the canceled concert.
