Omar Montes, Ana Mena and Yotuel: this is how the first concert without capacity restrictions is prepared at the WiZink

Updated Monday, October 11, 2021-11: 34

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Few of those who are waiting in the waiting room to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, imagine the bustle that lives a few meters away.

, engineers who calculate the electrical lines for the stage, technicians bringing and carrying instruments ...

The hustle returns to the WiZink Center, which resurfaces like a phoenix after a year and a half of nightmare.

Finally, that long-awaited moment arrived: tomorrow, National Holiday Day, the first concert without capacity restrictions will be held in Madrid with

as headliners.

Manuel Saucedo, the director of the venue, breathes, finally, relieved after having gone through very hard times with the pandemic.

While he shows us the facilities, he is showing the autographs of the artists who have paraded through the WiZink that decorate the entrance corridors to the dressing rooms.

, Alejandro Sanz, Malú, Serrat, Sabina ... the list is endless.

As if it were a pandemic Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the WiZink has had to split into two personalities in these times of covid:

for more than a million people and, on the other, a pavilion of sports and concerts.

After the announcement of the elimination of capacity restrictions, the WiZink will go from hosting 7,000 people to 12,300, who will still have to

both in the stands and on the track.

But the end of the limitations is a big step for the sector to reactivate and for the wheel to get back on track.

«A completely different panorama opens up.

For a 74,000-square-meter stadium to be profitable

.

No international artist is going to organize a tour with restrictions.

We have done several concerts, like the one at Loquillo, which was very emotional, but they turned out to be a ruin, "explains Saucedo.

The calls from promoters in search of dates to program are beginning to fall in a cascade, although many artists are still waiting for

on the track, a step that has already been taken in the Basque Country.

The pace of ticket sales is slow because

that concerts can be canceled and they don't want to risk it.

The year of records

And that 2020 was the year in which the Madrid venue sold more tickets than the rest of the stadiums in the world, according to the ranking of the specialized magazine Pollstar.

When

, the State of Alarm was declared and all the projects escaped down the drain.

«We had a spectacular start to the year.

Madrid was becoming the capital of live music and

.

For a venue like this, the coronavirus was tremendous ”, recalls the director.

Saucedo, in his office. J.

BARBANCHO

From one day to the next, the colossus had to stop in its tracks.

And, with it,

and the 200 million euros it generates per year

.

«We are dedicated to gathering people.

Our activity was just the opposite of what the health authorities recommended in times of pandemic.

We knew we were going to be the last to open ”, the stadium director tells GRAN MADRID.

He still has the memory of that implacable silence that ran like burning powder over every square meter of the pavilion.

Paradoxes of life, the worst year of the WiZink has also been the one in which it has been talked about the most.

-How did it occur to you to transform from a concert hall to a mass vaccination center?

-We stood idly by and offered our services to the Ministry of Health.

Our specialty is knowing how to move people and create the necessary logistics.

It was a positive impact to see thousands of people here again excited about having been vaccinated.

The most difficult thing was to make the immunization compatible with the events.

The key was to organize the vaccination in the

and to be able to keep the huge track and the stands intact, in such a way that

.

In this way, while thousands of people received the Covid antidote through the entrance of Jorge Juan Street, the WiZink concerts of

or Mike Tyler

have been held this year

, in addition to the King's Cup basketball , the handball, the futsal Super Cup or the Spanish paddle tennis championship. This pavilion has always been closely linked to major sporting events and, in fact, its previous name was the Palacio de los Deportes.

One of the secrets of the WiZink's success

: an Elton John concert can end at midnight and a Real Madrid basketball game the next morning.

The venue cannot afford to waste a day assembling and disassembling the stage and, therefore, there is a group of operations dedicated to transforming the venue in record time.

More life at night than by day

The pavilion has more life at night than during the day and, when dusk comes in, some 200 people can get to work with seven trailers entering the huge center track and

.

To facilitate this rapidity, the WiZink's lights and sounds hang from a raised and lowered technical ceiling, avoiding the need to hang professionals from the ceiling with a harness.

An operator setting up a stage E.

M

"The biggest complications of a big event

as a pump that pushes the stands or the engine from which the technical ceiling that carries the lights is suspended breaks down," says Raúl Domínguez , responsible for the production and operations department.

For Domínguez, the fact that the artist is late is also a drama because it means that he has much less time to assemble and disassemble.

Curiously, as mammoth as international tours may seem, they are so planned to the millimeter that they can be easier to set up than national ones.

"It is easier to take a tour with 24 heavily rolled trucks dismounting with their eyes closed than it is to

Seasoned in a thousand and one productions, Domínguez is clear about the most difficult show to do: television galas.

«They are one-day events and

.

There are always things that do not fit or the load capacity of the trucks is not well calculated, which delays dismantling, "he says.

In addition to the complexity of setting up a stage in a few hours, there is also the complexity of designing it to the taste of each artist.

Because once a tour promoter reserves a date at WiZink, negotiations get underway between the singer's producer and the stadium team to create the set.

For example, British group

into the crowd at their 2016 Drones World Tour concert.

A technician installs a piano. J.

BARBANCHO

All this taking into account that there is nothing that is dangerous for the public

Each concert has a specific security plan with a meeting between the WiZink team and the Government Delegation, the firefighters, the Municipal and National Police,

.

In addition, three hours before the event, another meeting is called again to check that everything works like clockwork.

Before each recital,

checked and each department checks its part using a computer application.

The City Council's entertainment inspection service also operates, which supervises the venue before opening the doors, during and after the event.

The WiZink Center now hopes to regain the leadership lost due to Covid at the same rate as the city.

.

After the hiatus of the pandemic, people will go back to doing music tourism.

In the concerts we give, there are always 27% Spanish from outside the city.

This generates immense economic activity.

In addition, we encourage everyone who comes to the concert to get vaccinated if they have not done so yet, "concludes Manuel Saucedo.

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