Originally Posted by Perche

It's probably a good idea to do it fairly soon. Opening the upper decks is part of the overall plan to make the Colosseum a living, cultural center of events for Rome. Some of the ideas seem good, some of them seem questionable. This was part of the plan of new Director of the Colosseum, Alfonsina Russo The original Colosseum of course, had events. It had an awning spanning most of the top, otherwise, nobody could sit exposed to the Roman sun all day. Those walls that appear at the bottom were all covered by a floor. Those were rooms where they housed wild animals, slaves, and gladiators. It was not exposed like it is now.

The overall plan is to reconstruct a flaw, put an awning over the Colosseum to make it semi-indoors, and hold concerts there. Russo actually announced that she is hoping to get Sting and Bono to do the first concerts, once they put in a floor.

They have held concerts in the Colosseum in the recent past, including Paul McCartney, who said, "this is the first time the Colosseum has had a band since the Christians," to introduce himself. Elton John played there too. I'm not exactly sure how they did it, but I believe they put in a temporary floor, a relatively small seating area for VIPS inside the Colosseum itself, and large screens outside in the surrounding plaza and streets, where most of the people watched it. I hope they are not going to go through with the plan of installing floors and an awning.

You never know with Italy. A year or so ago they banned all of the pan handlers who surround the Colosseum dressed as gladiators, who coax unwitting tourists to take a picture of them, then surround the tourist and demand 20 euros, sort of like the Mickey Mouse characters in Times Square, NYC. But the Court overruled the ban, and the Colosseum area is again riddled with fake gladiators.

I hope that if Russo does it, she does it right.