Piazza del Plebiscito is the oldest urban square in Ancona, dating back to the late 15th century. With its long rectangular shape and multiple architectural levels, it hosts a number of historic buildings and today stands as the vibrant heart of the city’s cultural and social life.

This evocative location hosted several evenings of the Ancona Summer Festival, which features a diverse range of musical events, including performances from Ancona Jazz, one of the longest-running and most renowned jazz festivals in Italy, celebrated for bringing internationally acclaimed artists to the stage and curating a program of exceptional artistic quality.

The historical nature of the venue certainly added to its immersive and captivating atmosphere but also presented several acoustic challenges. One section of the square is bordered by two very tall walls that enclose the audience area, causing significant unwanted reflections.

To effectively address these challenges, the Nettuno 20 Multi-Cabinet system was chosen for its controlled 90×40-degree coverage, ideal for such a complex acoustic environment. The horizontal dispersion helped avoid reflections from the tall walls near the audience area and eliminated the need for front fills, ensuring even clarity across the entire listening zone.

An added advantage of the Nettuno 20 is its remote control capability via AuroraNet, which made it possible to fine-tune the system based on the unique features of the square. This allowed us to reduce unwanted reflections and ensure a clean and high quality sound. This kind of control also guarantees a strong level of customization for any venue, adapting the system to different acoustic needs with ease.

The system easily handled a 20-piece big band, including vocal channels. Despite the front of house being positioned on in the stairs above the audience, the sound engineer experienced no issues: the vertical consistency of the system ensured an accurate mix and demonstrated excellent linearity on the vertical axis.

“A good dynamic response. The ability to easily control certain frequencies which, due to the square’s layout, tended to be excessively resonant was both useful and effective.” said the sound engineer of the event.
In stereo configuration, the Nettuno 20 effectively covers up to 300 people, providing uniform sound distribution across the entire audience area.

These events in Piazza del Plebiscito showcased how even a historical and acoustically complex venue can be fully enhanced through the right technology and thoughtful system design: an ideal balance between technical innovation and architectural heritage that contributed to the success of the 2025 Ancona Summer Festival.