A raft of Italian trade bodies have joined forces to launch a new campaign drawing attention to the ongoing shutdown of the country’s live music industry.

AssoMusica, Arci, Assomusica, Bauli in Piazza, KeepON LIVE and MMF Italy have united to launch the campaign under the banner #Nessunconcerto (no concert).

Concerts have been banned until today (31 January) and the country’s state of emergency has been extended to 31 March 2022, amid the spread of the omicron variant.

The consumption of food and drink at concert halls and other indoor locations is banned until the end of March.

The use of FFP2 masks is also compulsory on public transport, in theatres, concert halls and cinemas and for sporting events until at least 31 March.

In a statement, the associations say that the enduring restrictions – particularly the ban on food and drink – render concerts “economically unstable”.

“THE ENTIRE SECTOR IS ONCE AGAIN FORGOTTEN”

The bodies point out that the sector has been almost “totally silent” since the very beginning of the pandemic.

“Although, last October, there was a faint hope that we could start towards a gradual, albeit slow, restart, in recent months an entire sector, that of contemporary live music, is once again forgotten,” reads the statement.

The #Nessunconcerto launched exactly one year after the associations’ previous campaign, L’ultimo Concerto? (The Last Concert?), a campaign that has been defined as ‘one of the largest webmobs’ the sector has seen.

The initiative launched on social media at the end of January 2021 when Italian venues posted images with the year of foundation and the year 2021 with a question mark to suggest that the crisis may force the permanent closure of these spaces sooner rather than later.

The culmination of the campaign involved 130 Italian venues livestreaming ‘silent’ performances from renowned artists including Lacuna Coil on 27 February 2021, marking a full year since the first venues closed and stages fell silent.

The campaign was originally launched in Spain to highlight the increasingly uncertain future of music venues.

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