Since its birth, rock music has been seen as a revolutionary force and an agent of social change. But Pink Floyd’s show in Venice, Italy, on July 15, 1989, unintentionally resulted in the mayor and the entire city council resigning in the aftermath of their performance.
According to The Washington Post, the city had arranged for a free concert to take place in Venice’s historic Piazza San Marco (St. Mark’s Square) and which would be shown on television in more than 12 countries. The L.A. Times quoted the council as justifying it by saying that Venice “must be open to new trends, including rock music.”
Even before a note was played, residents were up in arms-this is because the free concert had been arranged to take place in St. Mark’s square, coinciding with the widely celebrated Feast of the Redeemer, and threatening the fragile historic art and architecture of the city- saying that the vibrations caused by the music had the potential to cause harm to the ancient monuments.“
A number of the city’s municipal administrators,” writes Lea-Catherine Szacka at The Architects’ Newspaper, “viewed the concert as an assault against Venice, something akin to a barbarian invasion of urban space.”
The city’s superintendent for cultural heritage “vetoed the concert” three days before its July 15 date, “on the grounds that the amplified sound would damage the mosaics of St. Mark’s Basilica, or Venice’s clock tower, for example that was completed in 1499, and construction on the bell tower for the St. Mark’s Basilica began in the 9th century highly fragile for a crowd of this multitude and noise volume , others said the whole piazza could very well sink under the weight of so many people.”
An accord was finally reached when the band offered to lower the decibel levels from 100 to 60 and perform on a floating stage 200 yards from the square, which would join “a long history… of floating ephemeral architectures” on the canals and lagoons of Venice.
Filmed by state-run television RAI, the spectacle was broadcast “in over 20 countries with an estimated audience of almost 100 million.”
The show ended up becoming a major scandal, splitting traditionalists in the city government and progressives on the council—who believed Venice “must be open to new trends, including rock music” (deemed “new” in 1989). It drew over 150 ,000 more people than expected or even lived within the city limits.
”Historic centers should not be used for performances that are incompatible with their historic nature,” Augusto Salvadori, a former Venice commissioner for tourism told The New York Times. ”If they want rock, let them do it in a football stadium, but not in the Piazza San Marco.”
But the Stadio Pierluigi Penzo holds 7,450 people, not nearly enough to accommodate Pink Floyd’s audience. So the band, sympathetic to the city, agreed to reduce the volume of its performance from 100 decibels to 60, and performed from a floating barge in a lagoon 200 yards from the square.
It was the audience, which numbered 200,000 (only 60,000 people live within the city limits), that did the most damage. Officials said that they left behind 300 tons of garbage and 500 cubic meters of empty cans and bottles. And because the city didn’t provide portable bathrooms, concertgoers relieved themselves on the monuments and walls.
The major damage to the square had to do with some marble that had fallen off a group of statues known as “The Judgement of Solomon” as opponents had previously predicted. It was undetermined however if this was the result of the volume of the music or the audience themselves.
The outrage was immediate. “This wasn’t a cultural event,” former Rome mayor Renato Nicolini told The Washington Post, “but a great commercial enterprise promoted by television and the record industry.”
At a public meeting two days later, Mayor Antonio Casellati took a similar defense, saying that there was “unusual pressure” from RAI, the state-run television network that profited from the concert. But his attempts at spin were shouted down with “Resign, resign, you’ve turned Venice into a toilet.” The Venetians got their wish. Before the end of the week, the entire city council had resigned, taking Casellati — who was elected by a coalition in the council — down with them.
You can watch a video taken at the concert even today: Video of the Pink Floyd Concert in Venice 1989
After this debacle, the memory lives in when considering public events , such as no one supported the effort to bring the Expo 2000 to Venice as the affect of the deluge of tourists would have been even greater with a projected 30 million tourists over a 4 month period surging to as many as 500 thousand in peak tourist periods.
Opponents from around the world voiced their opinion that the mass of humanity would destroy the fragile environments of Venice. And luckily, Venice was eliminated from the competition so we never have to know what would have happened.
But the story isn’t concluded, a tribute to the 25th anniversary of the Pink Floyd Concert is opened instead in Venice at the Spazio Porto, the former Santa Marta church and opened by no other than Fran Tomasi.
Evidently there is no shame!