It’s becoming there Mara Maionchi of the Lantern. More than a mayor, a great event organizer. We are talking about the first town of Genoa, Silvia Salismarried to Fausto Brizziwell-known film director. The last event christened by the former hammer throwing champion was the stage of the Summer festival of Radio dimension sound, with singers of the caliber of Annalisa, Sayf, IramaFinger in the Wound and the Nuclear Tactical Penguins. Yet another great party offered to the Genoese since she has been here, the mayor who is liked by the people who like her. With guaranteed seats under the stage for the entire majority. Including friends and relatives.
Yesterday in the chat of the municipal opposition this message began to circulate, probably sent from the upper floors of Palazzo Tursi: «We have reserved three entrances for each majority councilor, they allow you to stay in a reserved area in front of the stage (Pit entrance). The mayor will give a greeting on stage at 9pm. The tickets will arrive at the Municipality on Friday morning and must be collected during the day on the sixth floor of Tursi (at any time)”. The former Security Councilor of the centre-right council Sergio Gambino he published the screenshot on Facebook and commented: «If you are part of the Salis majority you have reserved seats. Rds concert in Genoa last night “accessible to everyone” said the Mayor Salis. However, the seats reserved under the stage are for the majority councilors and their friends. In Genoa, inclusion applies to everyone or only to friends of the majority.”
There Salis has long used music as a tool to reach young people and appear fresh and in step with the times. And when the artists come on stage, she is always at their side, ready to take the applause. Under his administration the Arena del Mare hosted two of the protagonists of Sanremo 2025, Lucio Corsi And Brunori Sas. On New Year’s Eve he gave the city a free concert by the Nuclear Tactical Penguins, which filled Victory Square. Then, on April 11th, there was the DJ’s exploit Charlotte De Wittewhich made more than 10,000 people dance in front of the Palazzo Ducale. On 18 and 20 June, with the patronage of the Municipality, which granted the Luigi Ferraris stadium, the Ligurian capital will host the double concert of OllyGenoese and Sampdorian like the first citizen (title of the event «Tutti a casa»).
But despite the success of these events, there was no shortage of media and even judicial squabbles. In fact, the tender called for the organization of the New Year’s concert and for other events to be held in the following three years ended sub judice after the appeal of Duemila grandi Eventi, excluded to the detriment of Rst Events. The first was excluded “following the verification of the adequacy of the offer” and the decision was determined by “in particular the lack of supporting documents (…) relating to the costs of the artists who constitute the main element of the service”.
The Commission, after having eliminated the Two Thousand Major Events, “arranged the award proposal in favor” of the Rst. The rejected company appealed and, then, the Commission «admitted the presentation in “adequate time” of any contracts of engagement with the artists “in order to self-defense the readmission to the tender”». The appellant “did not exhibit these contracts, stating that, following the exclusion from the selection, no artist considered signing definitive commitments for an event of uncertain organization”, while the RST, “after the aforementioned award proposal of 30 October 2025, signed the contracts with the artists”, the Nuclear Tactical Penguins. At this point, Duemila grandi Eventi turned to the Regional Administrative Court which deemed the appellant’s complaints to be “well founded”. In fact, for the magistrates, the “presupposition of the exclusion of the “lack of probative documents (…) relating to the costs of the artists, which constitute the main element of the performance” contrasts with Article 9 of the Regulations according to which the existence of the artists’ engagement/option contracts must exist only at the time of the award and not in previous phases of the tender”. Furthermore, “the exclusion was ordered without the prior activation of the procedural cross-examination”.
In their ruling the judges also write: «The existence of such contracts therefore constitutes a requirement of execution (and not of participation) whose existence cannot be claimed either during the submission of offers or in a phase prior to the award». The officials, in the decision, also point out that the RST, as was normal, “stipulated the contract for the engagement of the artists on 31 October 2025, i.e. only after the award proposal” and not before, as was expected by the Duemila Grandi Eventi. For this reason, on 10 April, the TAR ordered the “renewal of the tender operations (…) with conclusion of the operations within thirty days”. Obviously the new adequacy assessment will not concern the proposal for New Year’s Eve 2025, which has now gone to cavalry, but the possible “takeover of the contract for the part of the residual effectiveness of the same where it allows the successful tenderer to obtain new direct assignments in the three-year period”. Which, instead, as we will see, are still going to Rst or, better yet, to its sister company, Ops.
Meanwhile, the Municipality appealed and, last week, obtained a suspension of the new adequacy assessment. The judges, however, will decide on the merits only in October. The opposition in the Municipality immediately protested, especially after discovering that the New Year’s concert cost more than 1 million euros, all inclusive, an amount that the center-right had committed to organizing three different evenings during the 2024 Christmas holidays, complete with live Mediaset broadcasts. Local newspapers reported what the Democratic deputy mayor said in the chamber Alessandro Terrilea lawyer by profession: «We are convinced of the correct work of the administration and the offices» he clarified, as the mayor had already reiterated Salis. The former champion’s right-hand man added that as regards other events, “to date no further events have been planned or entrusted to Rst events after the New Year”, specifying that Rst events would not have managed the DJ set Charlotte de Witte in Piazza Matteotti, nor the double concert of Olly at the Ferraris stadium scheduled for June, the latter being an event not organized by the Municipality. Actually in the poster of Ollythe names of RST and OPS events are present.
While in the leaflet of De Witte only that of Ops. Which seems to obtain assignments with the well-known splitting technique to keep the single assignment below the threshold. But it is useful to know who is behind the Ops. The director and majority shareholder, with 34%, is Nicolò Sasso. The other shares of the company belong to Alessandro Orlando ea Luca Pietronave (33% each). Orlando And Stone they are also, with 49.5 and 45% of the shares respectively, the majority shareholders of the RST which, in theory, according to the deputy mayor, would no longer be involved in the events mentioned above. So Stone And Orlandowhen they don’t get contracts with Rst, they get them with Ops, born in January 2025. Stoneamong other things, until January 2025 he was an employee of Duemila grandi Eventi. «We discovered from an interview with him that is online that Stone he had been organizing things outside of the 2000 major events since October 2024, when he was still our employee and should have operated under our directives” he comments, with a bit of bitterness, Paola Donatipartner of Duemila grandi Eventi, a company founded by the former president of Assomusica Vincenzo Spera. We went to knock on the official headquarters of Ops, in Corso Martinetti, in the working-class district of Sampierdarena. The street it is on doesn’t bring to mind Broadway and the activities in the area have nothing to do with music. At the address indicated on the company website we found a somewhat dilapidated building from the first half of the twentieth century. We went up to the second floor and found ourselves in front of a law firm. We asked about Ops and a secretary looked at us a little surprised: “Here is only the registered office.” And where is the operational one? The girl, perplexed, started looking for information first on the computer and then on her cell phone. But while he was tinkering, a colleague came to his rescue: «Via Giovanni Tommaso Invrea 9/13, the same address as Rst. This is the registered office, that is the operational headquarters, the same as the RST.”
Therefore the Municipality will no longer give contracts to RST, but gives them to its sister company: same partners, same operational headquarters. But also in Genoa the show must go on.
