There’s no party like an Italian festa!
For seven years now, Festa Italiana, the UK’s biggest Italian festival, has been growing from strength to strength and we’re proud to have been delivering the press and socials for four of them. This was my third year on the ground and it might have been the best one yet!
Created by the family behind Manchester-favourite Salvi’s, Festa Italiana is the UK’s biggest annual celebration of all the best things Italian, taking in authentic food, drink and culture.
Championing Manchester’s vibrant communities and telling their stories has always been essential to our work and Festa Italiana is just another heartwarming reminder that we all speak the same language. It’s been an absolute pleasure telling the stories of the hard-working people of Italy, who bring a slice of their culture year upon year.
Working with the Festa team, festival partners and participants, we delivered a fun, community-centred campaign, building on the success from previous years. The incredible ethos of the festival and its colourful characters secured a series of features on BBC Radio Manchester and London One Radio.
Insanely fun, and absolutely bonkers – that’s how the Festa goes, and our dedicated social media team smashed the challenge of delivering outstanding live content.
We had it all – from a cheeky lemonade stand which caused a furore, to the ultimate (chaotic) Festa tour, delivered by the iconic Gennaro Contaldo and festival creator Maurizio Cecco, to breaking down language barriers and navigating the crowds to ask the vendors the most pressing of questions – does pineapple go on pizza.
When I tell you this one is going down in history – I mean it.
Inspired by the hugely popular Amalfi Coast extravaganza, Salvi’s introduced Manchester’s craziest Italian cooking class, right in the heart of the festival. Making pasta, catching a flying pizza dough disk, dancing, piping cannoli, and, of course, the return of the viral big pan, all made for a truly unforgettable night.
Guess who was there to keep you updated via live stories? All while dodging flying dough balls, crashing the dancefloor with the stunning pastaia Carmela Sereno Hayes, and singing along to Napoli anthems.
If, ‘the harder the work, the sweeter the reward’, then the campaign we created must have been absolutely scrumptious, but the proof is in the pudding!
We also generated 35 pieces of targeted coverage, across key titles like the Manchester Evening News, Manchester’s Finest, Secret Manchester, Manchester Wire, The Manc, About Manchester, Creative Tourist, Taste of Manchester, and Yahoo! News UK, alongside a hugely successful social media partnership with Eat MCR.
The social media strategy was aimed at raising awareness, maximising engagement and capitalising on the skyrocketing exposure during the festival. We created multiple social media collaborations with key Festa figures like Gennaro Contaldo, various performers and partners.
So if you’re as passionate about Italian culture as we are, have a taste of this year’s Festa Italiana.
As the Italians say, ci vediamo alla Festa Italiana 2025!
Evelina x
📸 by Simone Ronconi
