The city of Como has always been full of entertainment for visitors during the summer, spring and autumn, but despite the infrastructure for tourists and the local community always involved, winter was the season in which it was recorded a significant decline in tourist numbers.

The question was: How to attract tourists even in winter?
Since 1993 the city of Como organizes events that engages adults and children in different types of activities and in facilities with particular food and wine value. Over the years the event has grown a lot, proposing continuous news.

PROIETTA had the chance to directly witness this growth because, from 2010 onwards, it has been the main architect of Christmas lighting in the city. Started as a marginal project, it has gradually evolved over the years attracting more and more visitors becoming a multinational event.

According to annual reports, there were 2,314,374 visitors during Christmas 2018. The data refers to the accesses to piazza Duomo, core place of the event. Among the many innovations proposed by PROIETTA, a special mention should be made at the “Talking Broletto”, the highlight of Christmas 2018. The historic palace came to life animated by a video project that told the story of Christmas.

For the following Christmas the prefecture forbade to realize the animated projection on the façade of the Broletto in Duomo square, for reasons of public security. And this is because the influx of audiences of the 2018 edition was so numerous that the square was full of people with their noses up to admire the light projections on the facades of the surrounding buildings and, above all, to wait for the talking animation that started every fifteen minutes.

How much do 2,300,000 visitors give to Como activities?
According to same reports, with an average expenditure of only 15€ per person (for consumption, logistics, parking, gifts, etc.), the result is about 35,000,000€!

Year after year, Como has recorded an increase in tourist activity in the winter months and commercial activities in continuous economic growth with the “sold out” always around the corner. This can only turn into a reserve capable of accumulating work and economic induction for the city of Como.

How do we prepare an event of this magnitude?
Surely it is necessary to start in time, from the spring months to design new scenographies and video mapping that are of strong impact.