A few days ago the court of Udine definitively acquitted Filippo Giunta of the accusation of having facilitated the use of drugs by Rototom visitors. He acquitted him because the fact does not exist. So why has Rototom no longer been held in the province of Udine for some years but in the more tolerant Spain?
Let’s take a few steps back and see what Rototom is: it is a festival of reggae music and culture, born and raised for use or in the province of Udine, by the will of a group of friends including music experts, journalists , marketing and communication experts, who created a festival out of nothing that in Italy had reached peak visitors of 150,000 people. And it has become the most famous European Reggae festival, second in the world only to the Jamaican one. After more than 10 editions in Italy, in 2008 the Italian state decided to try the Rototom organizer Filippo Giunta for instigating the use of drugs. But Rototom is a reggae festival and certainly Mr. Filippo cannot control what over 150,000 people do once they enter the festival precinct, but so many are.
The organizers no longer feel safe (obviously) and decide to move the 2009 edition from Italy, from its natural location in Osoppo, Udine, to Benicassim, Spain, a few kilometers north of Valencia. Here the festival has grown from 2009 onwards to become Spain’s largest festival in 2014 with over 240,000 visitors. In 2010 this event was offered international recognition by UNESCO for its high moral and cultural content.
This is another great defeat for Italy, where once again for mere doctrinal and dogmatic questions a festival with a great cultural content and which generated millions of euros for Osoppo and the neighboring municipalities was lost.
