So far, six thematic meetings of appreciators of Alan Parsons music have been organized by the Italian fans. Every year since 1999 we have had two conventions. The location has been varied to give more fans the possibility to meet, and also to spread the organization efforts: three meetings have been done in Rome, two in Trieste and one in North-Center Italy. Every meeting is a 3 day long convention full of preorganized thematic activities, with fans coming from all over the country. The number of participants has obviously varied; the record high is 15 attendees. Every convention requires months of preparations: it's really a project.
After every meeting, every new participant has commented "Since the first minutes I felt like I was among old friends". This is not a coincidence: in the 80s many Parsons fans had the same interest for AP music, but it's only been in the late 90s that, thanks to the Internet, that the big fans were able to get in contact and could at last meet each other.
Since these meetings are based on a common passion for quality music, it doesn't surprise that the most appreciated activity has usually been the performance of AP music. Sometimes we have done a simple acoustic jam session, while in other meetings we managed to assemble a complete rock band of fans with preorganized arrangements. Another time in a church, we organized a pipe organ concert, mostly based on Powell's works. Also based on music were the musical representations, one based on Tales and one on I Robot; although home-made, they featured screenplay, lighting, set, costumes, and were also representations of the works of the writers which inspired the original music (Poe and Asimov).
A fun regular activity are the thematic games, which range from trivia-question games, to the "guess the song played on the piano", to our Project version of the game Monopoly. The games had prizes which have ranged from discographic rarities, to gadgets offered by The Avenue. Some prizes have been produced by ourselves, like a set of seven paintings inspired by Thorgerson's sleeves, which have been done by a painter who is the father of a fan. Another fan is a professional graphic designer, and has developed an original poster for each of our meetings. These activities have built a bridge between music and art.
Other typical activities, also emotional, include the exposition and exchange of rare discographic material, the projection of rare video material, the listening to music in hi-tech formats like DTS and DVD, and overall the lunch featuring thematic meals. In the hours with no special activities, the fans exchange comments about the music, typically while doing tourism (whether it's a tour of a castle or a visit to a chemical plant).
For a couple of years we also acted as unofficial Fan Club, equipped with fanzine, and also did exclusive interviews with Gary Howard and Chris Rainbow. Many fans have contributed to organize all this, and listing all of them here would be impossible. All of these fans did it for pure passion, with some dedicating a lot of their free time. There are also some foreign friends who gave their contributions. Speaking of foreign fans, we'd like to greet the fans in USA who have so far organized two Fan Fests there. Their meetings are similar to ours, yet organized independently. This shows that Parsons' fans have many things in common.
Among all, however, we'd like to thank Steve of The Avenue: it's thanks to him, that the first of us got in contact so we could start all this.
Best wishes to the Parsons fans all around the world!
Submmited by Giorgio Rizzarelli, on behalf of all the attendees of the Parsons Day meetings.
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Ammonia: A walk in Ammonia Avenue at Parsons Day 4 (Trieste, August 2000). As a surprise activity, we took the attendees into this street among chemical plants and grass, a place near the city, to take some photos. When we arrived at the location, after getting out of the car, we presented the "surprise" white coats. The fans felt quite comfortable wearing them! |
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Live: The fans of Parsons Day 5 during the private "live band performance" (Rome, March 2001). With a complete rock band (bass, drums, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, keyboards, vocals) we played 20 AP tunes. There was space for all the fans, even the amateurs or beginners, to play or sing something, especially in the instrumentals, which have complex arrangements but simple individual parts. Since we came from different cities, arrangements had been done at distance in the months before the meeting. Pictured: Dario Pompili, Sabrina Manna, Carlo Pompili, the meeting's poster (by A. Palmigiani); Giorgio Rizzarelli, Jin Sook Negusanti, Francesco Ferrua, Sergio Mattia; Gregorio Gobbi, Sara Perinelli, Enrico Contini, Guido Montini; Fabio Truppi, Roberto Dimario, Stefano Viezzoli and Alessandro Palmigiani. The additional fans who were present to other meetings are (in alphabetical order): Alessandro Cospite, Viviana Modena, Elena Schipizza, Ornella Valenti, Lorenzo Zencher. Almost all these 20 fans gave contributions to the meetings' organization, who more who less, and it would be too long here to list these contributions in detail. (photocomposition by G. Gobbi based on concept by G. Rizzarelli, inspired by the artwork of the USA version of the Alan Parsons "Live" album). |
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Starters: The starters of the thematic lunch of Parsons Day 4 (Trieste, August 2000). Try to find the references to all the 10 Project albums! Solutions (clockwise from upper left): plate with I Robot canapès and cheese pyramids, prawn canapè shaped as the picture on Gaudì's sleeve, EITS caviar and TTOAFC canapès, heart-shaped Eve canapè (with on flag the eye taken from sleeve) and Stereotomy salmon canapè, and (on lower left) the plate with "Pipeline" breadsticks and flags with logos from Tales and Vulture Culture. |
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