The Forum di Assago, now the Forum, was completed in 1990. The highly innovative project was awarded the 1994 European Architecture Award for Sporting Venues by CONI and the Council of Europe.
It has a volume of 450,000 cubic metres, a covered area of more than 40,000 square metres, a central arena that can host up to 12,700 spectators over three levels, as well as a VIP area with corporate boxes, called SkyPoint and SkyBox respectively: these figures immediately highlight Mediolanum Forum’s standing as one of the main multi-purpose venues in Europe. It is managed by the ForumNet Group which represents Italy in the prestigious European Arenas Association, which the group also co-founded.
In the first years of its history, the Forum di Assago was immediately characterised as a sports arena and was used firstly for hockey and basketball (and still hosts the home games of the Milanese teams in these respective sports), but from the outset its versatility was clear as demonstrated by the memorable ice-skating gala it organised. In the same years, it repeatedly hosted Milan's international indoor tennis tournament and, subsequently hosted a variety of different sporting events on a number of diverse surfaces for European and World level competitions.
The AreaMultisport is a large indoor area within the Mediolanum Forum that is dedicated to fitness, squash, sport on ice (the Forum’s ice-skating school is the most important of its kind in Italy, with a history of more than 24 years), water sports and bowling; furthermore, in June 2011 the Beach Forum was unveiled: an open-air 50 metre swimming pool, surrounded by a green area of more than 10,000 square metres.
Since its early years it has also been a major venue for national and international music: the “Forum” is a fixed and often the only Italian leg for the tours featuring the world's leading artists. Frank Sinatra’s 1991 concert was considered momentous, and since then the venue has hosted scores of names that need no introduction, from U2 to Madonna, not to mention Vasco Rossi.
While performing at the Mediolanum Forum represents a milestone in an artist’s career, the venue also showcases emerging artists: since 2009, Live Forum, an internal club dedicated to the live music, offers a very interesting and across-the-board programme.
Over the years, Mediolanum Forum has also offered its audiences great open area events (the main one being the Festival Latinoamericando) and entertainment, dedicated especially to families (Cirque du Soleil, David Copperfield, the Disney shows, Walking with Dinosaurs.
Finally, the Metro, which was always a part of the vision of its founder, Giuseppe Cabassi, and which is now a reality: the Mediolanum Forum is in fact served by the Green line of the Metro and is only seven stops away from the centre of town, which serves to make it even closer to the hearts of the Milanese people.
