Lucca Summer Festival

Lucca Summer Festival is a rock and pop festival that began on 6 July 1998 in Piazza Napoleone, inside Lucca’s walled centre in Tuscany. Bob Dylan opened that first night to about 5,000 people. Lo Schermo and Perini Journal date it. Mimmo D’Alessandro, of D’Alessandro & Galli, built it after talking with Andrea Tagliasacchi, then president of the province. The square was still a car park. July was low season. That same month Joe Cocker, Tito Puente and George Benson played. On 2 July 1999 Elton John filled about 7,000 places. The company is DI and GI Srl, D’Alessandro & Galli, now in the CTS Eventim group. The site summer-festival.com is kept. The Comune and the Province worked with it from the start.

Lucca is a city of Renaissance walls, brick streets and a tree-lined square that locals call Piazza Grande. The Napoleone stage holds 6,000 to 12,000 people, depending on the chairs. Early years also used Piazza dell’Anfiteatro and Piazza San Martino. In 1999 one bill moved to Stadio dei Pini in Viareggio. In 2002, 2007 and 2010 Stadio Porta Elisa in Lucca lent the grass. For the large nights the walls — Ex Campo Balilla — take what the square cannot hold. In 2024 Ed Sheeran played two wall dates and La Nazione put 80,000 people across both. In 2025 Jennifer Lopez took the walls on 21 July, her only Italian date that tour.

The festival runs as a series of July nights, sometimes nineteen, one artist a night, with the city open around them. The Italian Wikipedia, crossed with the official archive, counts more than 300 artists and more than 1,400,000 spectators through 2024. Radio Rai, Radio 101 and Radio 105 have carried nights. From 2024 there has also been Lucca Summer Festival Talk. The crowd mixes locals, Tuscans and visitors; some nights sell a high share of tickets abroad. D’Alessandro comes from La Bussola in Versilia, from the On The Road agency in Viareggio (1979) and from the 1987 firm with Adolfo Galli. The Bussoladomani summer bills from 1988 were the seed Perini places ten years before the move to Lucca.

In 2020 and 2021 there was no edition. Lo Schermo wrote the 2022 return, with Bob Dylan again on 6 July, the same calendar day as 1998. From 28 June to 27 July 2025 the festival ran nineteen nights. Antonello Venditti opened. Dream Theater, Santana, Irama, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Till Lindemann with Lacuna Coil, Scorpions, Ghali, Cocciante, Robert Plant, Nick Cave, Nile Rodgers & CHIC, Pet Shop Boys, Riccardo Muti with the Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini, Alanis Morissette, Simple Minds, Morrissey and Bryan Adams filled Napoleone. Jennifer Lopez closed the wall night. La Nazione, before opening, put more than 82,000 tickets in pre-sale and more than 13,000 for Lopez. D’Alessandro said 2024, with Sheeran, would stay in the record.

From 24 June to 29 July 2026 the festival already took place. LuccaInDiretta, on 30 July, put about 83,000 paying visitors. Neil Young & The Chrome Hearts were cancelled; D’Alessandro said more than 20,000 tickets had been sold for that night. Katy Perry, on 19 July, filled the walls: RaiNews wrote 18,000 and NoiTV 19,000, the only Italian date of the Lifetime Tour, at 34 degrees. Zucchero, on 16 July, drew about 15,000 on the ramparts. Jamiroquai also used the walls. In Napoleone, among others, Ludovico Einaudi, David Byrne, John Legend, Alabama Shakes, Ronnie Wood, Muti, Marcus Miller and Tom Jones played. Pooh closed on 29 July to more than 6,000. The 2025 hospitality area had moved to cortile Carrara.

Rock and pop measured the ear. Piazza Napoleone pins the mid-size nights. The walls pin the large nights. Lucca pins the city. Tuscany pins the map. Postcode 55100 pins the square. D’Alessandro & Galli pins the producer. 6 July 1998 pins the start. The 2020 and 2021 gap pins the pandemic. The 83,000 of 2026 pins the scale already held. The walls, the car park that became a square and the stage under the trees pin the character: a walled-city festival, night by night, without camping and with the train inside the ring. Dylan returned to Napoleone eighteen years later, in 2016. Fiorello took Porta Elisa in 2010. Perini Journal names Ennio Morricone and Roberto Benigni among the city nights. The 2025 square, with new paving and marble benches by Maria Luisa, still took the stage at the end of May. Generation Sex played on 4 July 2022. The Chemical Brothers also took Napoleone after the covid gap.