Mi Ami Festival on the emerging ‘middle road’ of Italian festivals
A tension is emerging between local and international focuses, the Milan festival says, as it wraps up its 2026 edition
News By Ciaran Donnelly | 4 June 2026
A distinct middle tier is emerging in the Italian live sector as the country’s market bifurcates into hyper-local and A grade international strands. Between the two extremes stand events like Mi Ami Festival.
This is according to the festival’s director Carlo Pastore, as he tells IQ about the burgeoning middle road in the national market that it, and events like it, increasingly occupy.
Standing for Musica Importante a Milano, the festival recently celebrated its twentieth anniversary, and Pastore takes the opportunity to reflect on how the modern festival landscape is pulling local-focussed events in two directions.
Against a backdrop of Italy’s growing attractiveness for international tours, punctuated recently by the opening of the Unipol Dome in Mi Ami’s native Milan, Pastore says that…
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