Di & Gi’s Adolfo Galli surveys the Italian biz

Italian promoter Adolfo Galli has told IQ the country’s live music market is showing signs of recovery despite another challenging year.

Galli and his D’Alessandro e Galli (Di and Gi) co-founder Mimmo D’Alessandro are profiled in the upcoming issue of IQ, out later this week, which looks back at their illustrious 35-year business union with the help of a number of their longtime industry sparring partners.

Di and Gi’s month-long Lucca Summer Festival (cap. 40.000) made a successful return this summer with headliners such as Justin Bieber, Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets, Liam Gallagher + Kasabian, John Legend and Robert Plant + Alison Krauss. The firm also debuted new 10,000-cap Tuscany festival La Prima Estate in June with headline acts including Duran Duran, The National and Bonobo, and Galli suggests the public’s appetite for live shows has not waned since the pandemic-enforced break.

“We have sold a lot of tickets for all of our shows this year”

“People are buying tickets,” Galli tells IQ. “Lucca Summer Festival this year, which was the first one we’ve managed to do since Covid, did incredibly well. We sold almost 140,000 tickets and most of the shows were sold out.

“We have sold a lot of tickets for all of our shows this year, including Eric Clapton in October, our Elton John show at San Siro Stadium, which sold out – 50,000 tickets – and the Rolling Stones show also in Milan – 57,000 tickets.”

Brescia-based Galli and Viareggio-based D’Alessandro have carved out a niche over the years by staging concerts at unique venues such as David Gilmour, Elton John and King Crimson at Pompeii; Leonard Cohen and George Michael in Piazza Santa Croce, Florence; and James Taylor at the Piazza del Popolo, Rome.

“We’ve always looked at creating events that are not customary,” says Galli. “A great rock and roll band meeting a great archaeological site is one of those things that people will remember, whereas anybody can play a sports hall. Whether you are in New York, London or Milan, they are all the same and our view has always been to look for different locations, which is a big challenge.”

“I think people have already said too much about Covid”

Italy’s music industry was allocated €50 million by the government earlier this year following ‘The Last Concert?’ (L’ultimo Concerto?) campaign, promoted by KeepOn Live, Arci and Assomusica in collaboration with Live DMA. Fifteen million euros were dedicated to live clubs and other operators in the live music sector, €10m to concert organisers to compensate losses due to cancelled or missed dates, and €25m to authors, performers and performers for missed collections.

Di and Gi has a busy few months in store with upcoming concerts with the likes of Little Simz at Fabrique (cap. 3,100) and Kasabian at Alcatraz (3,000), both in Milan, rescheduled arena dates with Eric Clapton in Milan and Bologna, and tours with Bryan Adams, James Taylor, Roger Waters and Michael Bublé, among others, as it bids to make up for lost time.

“After two years, we finally started working again in April/May 2022,” says Galli. “Our first tour, which has been moved twice, was by Eric Clapton. So in May, we were ready with our Eric Clapton shows in Milan and Bologna. [But[ three days before the first date, we got a phone call saying Eric Clapton’s got Covid and we had to move the dates to October. It’s unbelievable! There’s nothing more we can say – I think people have already said too much about Covid.”

“The world is changing and we need to be part of a major company”

While CTS Eventim took a 60% stake in Di and Gi in 2018, D’Alessandro and Galli have continued to run the company on a day-to-day basis.

“A lot of the things that we were starting to develop or discussing with them had to be stopped [because of the pandemic],” notes Galli. “Now, we have started again, we are looking at some ideas that we can mutually develop together. The world is changing and we need to be part of a major company because it’s more and more difficult for an individual independent company to work nowadays.”

The full feature celebrating D’Alessandro e Galli’s 35th anniversary will be published in IQ 114.

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