By Camillo Facchini - October 6, 2022

Brescia producing never ceases to amaze. In a shed in the countryside of Cazzago, set designs for theme parks have been produced for a few years now with a stagecraft that, if it was once entrusted to hammer and chisel, is now guided by the commands that a program entrusts-as if it were a 3D printer but with not additive but subtractive technology-to an invisible blade that gives form and content to what is initially a simple block of polystyrene. That sums up what Panel System can do, a business name that will soon be replaced by something with more glam, because the business of set design and the entertainment industry demands anything but something unglamorous. stampante in 3D ma con tecnologia non additiva bensì sottrattiva – ad una lama invisibile che dà forme e contenuti a quello che inizialmente è un semplice blocco di polistirolo. Si riassume così quel che sa fare Panel System, ragione sociale che presto verrà sostituita da qualcosa con più glam, perché il business della scenografia e dell’industria dell’entertainment tutto chiede fuorché qualcosa di poco affascinante. 

Mammut, an attraction at Gardaland amusement park.

The focus

The company led by Matteo Bastoni is dedicated to structural and scenic design and the creation of amusement parks, shopping malls, water parks, and suggestions for the business that wants to accompany its products with something that will leave its mark on the customer, as in the case of Polaretti, the icicles of the Dolfin group founded in 1914 in the Catania area, which have been successfully produced on the market for 30 years. Small, but permeated the market, Panel System has participated inthe scenic setup of Gardaland's Magic Hotel as well as life-size elephants from the attraction of the «Jungle rapid», molded from silicone rubber and fiberglass, rather than of the sculptural block that-again at Gardaland-reproduces the characters of Prezzemolo's family to which can be added numerous sets laid in the numerous amusement parks born from the idea of Gardaland that have sprung up here and there in Italy.

Businessman Matteo Bastoni

Telling about Panel System thinking about theme parks might lead one to imagine something industrially gigantic: for now it is a small business with an ebitda around 20 percent, over twenty employees, active in a market occupied 60 percent by Italian parks and the rest by outlets, shopping centers, large retailers.

Market to which-with the collaboration of the University of Brescia-panel system is about to bring products that belong to animatronics i.e., a computerized system that represents an animated being that, through special effects, alters its movements and features. The working process is simple, but not even too simple: from the drawing it goes to the computer and from the computer to the carving wire that gives shape to the character or scene, although it is then up to the man-artist to smooth out the roughness and style the character or landscape with colors. The last page of Panel System's portfolio features King Cross, a mall in Lviv, Ukraine where a seating area had been created by redeveloping the premises adjacent to the ice rink. Will it still be there?