L-Acoustics loudspeaker systems were deployed for a concert by Italian singer Ultimo, whose real name is Niccolò Moriconi, at the Tor Vergata site in Rome, an event billed as the largest ticketed concert in Italian history. The audience area extended 580m from the stage, which was 140m wide, creating a substantial challenge for sound coverage and control. The distinction as “largest ticketed concert” is significant as Paul McCartney’s free concert at the Colosseum in 2003 was estimated to have drawn around 500,000 spectators, but was not a ticketed event.
The L-Acoustics L1 line source and CS1 subwoofer enclosures use cardioid architecture designed to provide up to 26dB of rearward sound rejection. The configuration was selected to help limit sound spill towards the Policlinico Tor Vergata teaching hospital, which is adjacent to the performance site. The wider system used K1, K2 and V-DOSC loudspeakers at nine sequential delay positions, connected through a star-topology Milan-AVB network.
The plain at Tor Vergata holds no permanent event infrastructure: no power, no access roads, no load-in routes. It has taken very large crowds before, most recently more than a million young people for the free, non-ticketed Jubilee of Youth with Pope Leo XIV in August 2025.
Remo Scafati, front-of-house assistant at event production company Agorà, said: “The L1 main system was a game changer, extremely powerful and good sounding. With its cardioid pattern, coupled with the CS1 subs, it helped us a lot with the challenge of noise control.”
The scale of the venue also made the distributed delay system difficult to install and optimise, with the team working to a tight schedule in extreme heat.
Valerio Motta, technical manager at Agorà, said: “The biggest operational challenge was the delay system. Given the enormous size of the venue, the intense working schedule and the extreme heat, getting everything into place and properly optimised was far from easy, but the final result made all the effort worthwhile.”
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