RCF Arena — Reggio Emilia, Italy

Almost everyone calls it Campovolo, after the airfield the site used to be, though the formal name is RCF Arena Reggio Emilia. It occupies flat ground on the northern edge of Reggio Emilia, in Emilia-Romagna, and it has become the address Italian touring aims at when a date needs to be bigger than a stadium allows.

The distinction that matters: this is not a football ground with a stage dropped into it. It was laid out for concerts from the start — an enormous level field facing the main stage, with structured seating built around the edges. Very few places in Europe give a production this much room to work with, and the difference shows in the size of the staging that gets built here.

Italian record attendances have been set on this field, and international tours routing through the country tend to make it their largest single date rather than one stop among several. When a tour plays one Italian show, it is frequently this one.

The arena lies north of Reggio Emilia, next to the small historic airfield that gave it the Campovolo name, in the middle of the Po Valley. Emilia-Romagna is the region Italians themselves treat as the country's kitchen, and Reggio Emilia sits in the middle of a triangle formed by Milan, Bologna and Verona — all three reachable by motorway and by high-speed line.

Around the site there is farmland and light industry and very little else, which is exactly what a venue of this scale needs. On an ordinary Tuesday it is quiet; on a concert day it absorbs tens of thousands of people without a residential neighbourhood absorbing them first. The open ground is also what lets promoters build staging that simply would not fit inside a city stadium.

Weather deserves real attention here, because there is no roof anywhere. Northern Italian summers run hot and often humid, with the field taking full afternoon sun before the evening cools it. Spring and early autumn evenings drop sharply once the light goes. Check the forecast, and check what the promoter has said about rain, before you travel — an open field in a downpour is a different evening entirely.

Rail is what makes this venue work for visitors. Reggio Emilia sits on the Milan–Bologna high-speed line and on the A1 between the same two cities, so a show here is reachable as a day trip from either — which is precisely how a large share of the audience arrives.

Transport options:

• High-speed rail — Reggio Emilia AV Mediopadana, Calatrava's wave-roofed station outside the city, takes Frecciarossa and Italo services. Milano Centrale is about 35 minutes away, Bologna Centrale about 25. For most visitors this is the whole answer
• Regional rail — the older Reggio Emilia station in the centre of town handles regional trains from Parma, Modena and Bologna. Slower than the high-speed line from Milan, and materially cheaper
• Shuttle buses — for the bigger nights, shuttles run between the stations and the arena. Whether they run, and from where, is confirmed on the event page as the date approaches
• Taxis — ranks operate at both stations. Ride-hailing coverage in mid-sized Italian cities is patchy, so the official rank is the dependable option rather than an app
• Driving — reachable from the A1 (Milan–Naples) and the A22 Brennero, with car parks opening around the site. Both the approach and the departure run slower than the map suggests when the field is full

Arrive earlier than instinct suggests. A standing ticket to a major headline show justifies two to three hours ahead of the start if the position on the field matters to you; a seated ticket needs 60–90 minutes. Getting away afterwards is the slow part — shuttle queues and station platforms take the whole site's worth of people at once.

The layout is a field and a perimeter. Standing tickets put you on the flat ground in front of the stage, where position depends entirely on when you arrived; seated sections sit around the edge and higher up, which suits anyone unwilling to stand through a three-hour show. Because the field is level rather than raked, the video walls either side of the stage do a lot of work for everyone beyond the first few thousand people.

Food and drink outlets are spread across the site rather than concentrated at one end, with merchandise points alongside. Cards are accepted almost everywhere; a few euros in cash still helps at the smaller vans. Restrooms and first-aid stations are distributed across the whole area, which is a necessity at this scale rather than a courtesy.

Screening at the gates is standard. Refused items usually include professional cameras, large bags, outside food and drink, umbrellas with pointed tips, and anything that could be thrown. The list is set per event — read the event page rather than assuming, especially for the umbrella rule, which catches people out at an open-air venue.

Entry times, running order and support billing are confirmed as each date nears — upcoming events carries what is current for Reggio Emilia.

Emilia-Romagna is a poor region to pass through quickly. Reggio Emilia is walkable and unshowy, with good piazzas and a compact centre, and it holds a piece of national history most visitors do not expect: the Italian tricolour was adopted here in 1797, and the Sala del Tricolore with its museum tells that story on the spot where it happened.

What surrounds it is the argument for staying longer. Parma, half an hour by train, gave its name to both the cheese and the ham and keeps an opera house that Italians take seriously. Modena, a similar distance the other way, holds traditional balsamic vinegar and the Enzo Ferrari museum in the house where he was born. Bologna is an hour off, with one of the great historic centres of Italy, and Milan is close enough for a day at the other end of the scale.

Italy sits inside the Schengen Area, so a short visit is visa-free for many nationalities and needs a Schengen visa for others. Confirm what applies to your passport with the Italian consulate or the official government portal before committing to flights.

Ordering and delivery questions are handled on the FAQ page. To see the rest of what is scheduled, browse upcoming concerts and sporting events.