The Parco Archeologico del Colosseo presents Sangue e Arena, a brand-new immersive show reliving the splendour of the inaugural games held by Emperor Titus between June and September of the year 80 AD and lasting 100 days. The performance is in the amphitheatre arena, where the gladiators fought.

The multimedia images, virtual reconstructions and use of holograms projected onto a 17-metre canvas are uniquely exciting. Images, lights, sounds and music convey what really occurred. The expectation and excitement of the spectators of the past are relived through tales by the poet Martial, an eye-witness to the games and whose epigrams in the Liber de Spectaculis enable us to relive all sorts of past spectacles, including the fantastic aquatic choreographies.

The technology. The Sangue e Arena images are projected onto a non-intrusive and unostentatious surface, more a canvas than a screen. Large and with special features, it shows all the details of the images and sits close to the audience, exercising an immersive impact and incorporating the fascinating structure of the arches. It mixes architecture, history and realism in an audio-visual production that narrates the events with scientific rigour, generating strong emotions.
An extraordinary play of lights, sounds and visual effects plus a hologram display allow the public to identify with those who watched the great inaugural games of the Amphitheatre approximately 2000 years ago. It is through their eyes that today’s spectators immerse themselves not only in the ancient history of the Colosseum and the thrills of the games but also in the beliefs and legends of the times.