On 15 August, the Arena in Verona was the spectacular setting for the opening of the European Women’s Volleyball Championships with the opening match between Italy and Romania. PERFORMANCE iN LIGHTING highlighted the playing field and its prestigious setting.
The La Scala amphitheatre thus returned to host an international competition after 35 years since the last competitive event, which took place with the volleyball match on 23 May 1988 between the United States and the Soviet Union, the opening friendly of the Mondovolley event. The Berlin Wall was still impassable and the two Cold War superpowers challenged each other in Verona’s oldest temple of entertainment in an incredible night of sport that has remained in the annals of world volleyball.
The work to set up the temple of opera and turn it into a volleyball court with stalls and press boxes lasted almost three days and saw the commitment of two hundred employees who transformed Verona’s Roman amphitheatre into the most atmospheric open-air playing field.
The organisational effort was extraordinary and required the endorsement of the superintendence that protects the historic monument. Verona was the first stage of a travelling championship that then continued to Belgium, Germany and Estonia. For the city it was a test bench in terms of the organisation of major events in view of the 2026 Winter Olympics. The Arena will host the closing ceremony of the Games and the opening ceremony of the Paralympics.
An event of this magnitude required a very specific lighting design, for which the organisers relied on PERFORMANCE iN LIGHTING’s 40 years of experience in providing light for sporting events of international calibre. A far from simple challenge given the lighting performance to be guaranteed, the uniqueness of the site and the speed required for the intervention
The lighting was provided using 56 LASER+ 30 professional projectors with 10°x25° elliptical optics. The projectors were installed along the upper side perimeter of the amphitheatre on a structure specially created for events of this type. Each of them is individually controlled via DMX digital protocol with the ability to dim the light and manage programmed switching on and off to create impressive lighting choreographies at the beginning, during the intervals and at the end of the match.
For the first time, PERFORMANCE iN LIGHTING experimented with the rental formula for its luminaires, giving them on a temporary concession basis to the Verona-based lighting service MeQuadro, thus offering an innovative service that meets the needs of large event players. The products were wired specifically for the world of lighting service so that they could be installed quickly.
In a second phase, the lighting design was carried out with great precision and the result was an unparalleled event for both the players on the court and the spectators in attendance, as well as for the television audience in the more than one hundred countries that broadcast the live video coverage, with a potential of more than one billion viewers.
