Passa Parole: Events in Italy
Passa parole is the Italian way to spread the word and announce cultural events, concerts and exhibitions.
A rich supply of free or almost free culture and entertainment helps to raise Italy’s value as a holiday destination. The only problem is to find out what happens where and when. Especially when you are a foreigner and all cultural advertising works through ‘Passa Parole’.
Always something going on
My local Italian bookseller who is very knowledgeable and runs a well-stocked shop, will hardly let go of ‘Manuale Del Perfetto Turista
– Normally, Italian writers don’t write about Italy. We leave that to foreign authors such as Goethe, Byron and Henry James.Beppe Severgnini is a journalist, who has lived in England and the United States for many years, and everybody were laughing their heads off, when he published his book on the British. He is great fun. See what he writes about Lecce. I had completely forgotten, we had the book, says the bookseller, before he relunctantly lifts his eyes from the text and hands the book over the counter.
A few hours later I am sitting on the terrace, reading about Beppe Severgninis journey along the Italian coast in 1990. He is certainly entertaining and has some interesting points. One of them is about the Italian urge to organise events.
”Un viaggio lungo l’Italia affacciata sul mare è molto più complicate di un’inchiesta di Cina: là le cose bisogna scorprirle; qui bisogna evitarle. Le coste italiane, da metà luglio a metà agosto, pullulano infatti di avvenimenti. Non c’è amministrazione comunale, associazione culturale, fondazione o ente morale che se ne stia buono: tutti devono organizzare qualcosa” (Beppe Severgnini: Manuale del Perfetto Turista p 216)
Free Art and Entertainment
And he is right. In July I more or less volutarily managed to avoid the sport games Giochi del Mediterraneo in Pescara, the Battiti Radio Norba Live concert in Bari, a Bellini concert in Catania, an outdoor performance of Madame Butterfly in Macerata and various art exhibitions, fashion shows, food and wine festivals, religious processions, historical pageants, a Palio race, dance performances and jazz festivals. Nevertheless, I did attend both theater, opera, jazz and folk concerts, plus a couple of performance and art exhibitions, and in contrast to Beppe Severgnini, I think a rich supply of free or almost free culture and entertainment helps to raise Italy’s value as a holiday destination.
The only problem is to find out what happens where and when, so you do not miss anything you would like to have experienced.
Passa Parole
The Internet is not yet a big help in this respect, newspapers can not keep track of everything, and there is no TimeOut or central ticket service available. The only way to keep updated of current cultural offerings is to keep your eyes and ears open. Cultural advertising works through ‘Passa Parole’ as my friend explained when asked how she found out when there was a good concert in the area.
Since then I have made a habit of consulting the wall of public announcements every time I arrive in a new Italian city, and usually I find something interesting between the obituaries and political posters.
Thanks for this. Passaparola, or the “grapevine” is, indeed, a good way to find out what’s happening in Italy.
And that includes, as you say, the billboards. What has always fascinated me about those is that the posters are always stuck up in duplicate — one right next to another, one above the other, or whatever, as shown in the picture. I’ve never been able to understand why. That two little ones have the impact of one big one? I don’t recall that in any other country. You?
However, we do need to acknowledge that some people in Italy are working to make information dissemination easier. Local newspapers, usually online, are starting to make some headway. One example is VareseNews, https://www3.varesenews.it. Indeed, Marco Giovannelli and his team organize an annual conference (13-16 November 2014), entitled Glocalnews, to promote local outreach, including events that warrant a wider audience. As every year, a highlight of GlocalNews 2014 conference is a get-together of other similar initiatives Italywide. Details here: https://www.festivalglocal.it/incontro/barcamp-giornali-locali/.
Not TimeOut, to be sure, but a good start.
Full Disclosure: although I live near Varese and am a great fan of VareseNews and I will be attending GlocalNews, my involvement stops there.
What a curious observation about the duplicity of the billboards. You’re absolutely right, they always come in streams for no apparent reason. I’ve always seen it as a practicality. I suppose they get the organisers get a discount of scale at the printers and instead of throwing the surplus in the garbage they decorate a wall. But that’s just speculation:)
I also agree that things are changing and more and more events get announced online. More so up North I guess, like you example with VareseNews. In our part of Puglia, online announcements rarely hit the internet until after the event, and at the same time they are cutting down on posters, which means you really have to listen to the grapevine, to know what’s going on.