Turin, 21 October 2000

This exposition was the longest Exposition of the Shroud in recent history, it is going to end on Sunday 22 October, after 72 days (plus 2), and it recorded

1.041.371 reservations.

950.792 pilgrims visited the exposition by yesterday at 4 p.m.. 92.483 more people have booked for today and tomorrow and for the two additional days, Saturday and Sunday. Moreover, 225.000 people entered the Duomo from the main door, without a reservation, to see the Shroud from there. (file 1)

The exposition is a religious event. It was planned by the Pope, along with the exposition of 1998, and in the context of the celebrations for the Jubilee. The exposition 2000 had all the characteristics of a jubilee pilgrimage: also for this reason the pilgrimage trail (file 3) was changed from 1998, meditative stations were added, and, besides, a special place for the sacrament of confession (file 10), the chapel of adoration of the Eucharist, and the exhibition of Love were organized. The welcome services for the pilgrims were enlarged since 1998 (file 5).

The high number of young people who were going to take part in the youth world meeting, as people from many other jubilee pilgrimages organised by parishes and religious groups, confirms the strong impact the jubilee had on the exposition 2000, and helps us to underline its being an extraordinary ecclesiastic event, which is not possible to repeat regularly (file 6).

The total number of reservations was lower than in 1998. There are many explanations for this fact: for example, we should consider the effects the fire of 11 April 1997 had on public opinion, spreading the news about the Shroud all over the world. The arrival of the Pope in Turin (24 May 1998)was also a very popular event. Moreover, this year, many visitors, even the Italian ones, chose to go to Rome for the Jubilee, and many others had already come to Turin in 1998 and they decided not to repeat that experience this year.

This would mean that most of the pilgrims who attended this year’s exposition had not come to Turin in 1998; comparing the lists of reservations for the two expositions, we can notice that there was not a total correspondence between the names of visitors.

There were less pilgrims from northern Italy and more from abroad. Piedmont and Lombardy remained, as in 1998, the regions with the highest number of visitors. Northern Italy has approximately the 86% of Italian visitors, although the number of foreigners rose, together with the number of people from southern and central Italy (altogether 14%).

This year, organised groups of pilgrims were the 24% of the total (file 1). Speaking of foreigners, in 1998 reservations from abroad had been 58.829 (3,31% of the total): this number was overridden this year on 24 september 2000, half way to the end of the event.

In the whole, there were 112.874 foreigners this year, 10.8% of the total number of visitors. In this number we did not consider many young foreigners who came for the world youth meeting and whose reservations were made by their Italian host families and parishes.

Among the foreigners, as among the Italians, small groups and families were numerous: it is possible that they came to Turin not only to visit the Shroud but to see the city as tourists (file 2). Many cultural events were organised in the days of the Exposition (file 4).

The percentage of reservations made on the internet had a large increase: 207.994 reservations, 20% of the total (only 9% in 1998)(file 1).

System of reservations - The interaction between making reservations for the Exposition and other museums and exhibitions in Turin or other areas of Piedmont grew sensibly (file 13). This is an important issue since, thinking about the Olympic games of 2006, the integrated system that allows this kind of reservations is a strategic instrument to control the streams of people in Turin and in the other areas where the games will take place. The two recent expositions of the Shroud helped the town management to plan an organisational platform for that future event.

The media coverage of the Exposition was much lager than in 1998: the press release -although it is not complete- is about 10 kilos (file 8). The total number of accredited journalists was lower than in 1998 (also because, in 1998, many of them came only for the Pope celebration on 24 May), but many articles that were published enlarged the amount of information the public could get on the Shroud. In addition to TV and radio reportages, there had been requests for movies, documentaries, TV shows in which both the Shroud and its Turinese context were supposed to be shown. This widening of the range of interest in relation to the Shroud must be mentioned.

Also in the press, the Exposition event was linked to the broad Turinese reality and its cultural and tourist resorts. In the last two years, the diffusion of the internet changed the system of relationships with the information media. The Exposition was filmed by press agencies from all over the world which did not send any journalist to Turin but were able to work on what the press office had prepared for them on the web site(file 12).

The mass media remain the most important means of communication: from a survey we could verify that most of the visitors learned about the Exposition from the papers or from radio and television programs. All kinds of communications were dealt with by the press office in collaboration with the Town Hall, the Province and the Region administrations. The communication campaign, made by Feeling, was supported also by Mailander studio, especially for what was related to national and foreign information (organised communication campaign were led in France and Spain, besides the presentation of the Exposition in the Vatican press room).

There were no relevant problems with the welcome organisation and information campaign of the Exposition.

On the contrary, the media coverage this year was equal or even larger that in 1998, especially for what concerns foreign press (file 8). The many volunteers worked in their various areas and they were definitely praised and appreciated (file 9).

The committee for the Exposition of the Shroud worked in continuity both in 1998 and 2000, just like the organisational office did (file 11): for this reason a better harmony in the group and in the work organisation was reached.

Comitato per l’Ostensione solenne della Sindone e per l'anno giubilare 2000
Committee for the Solemn Exposition of the Shroud and for the jubilee year 2000
Ufficio Stampa - Press Office
Via XX Settembre 83 - Torino
Tel. 011-521.61.67 Fax 011-460.11.82
E-MAIL: press.sindone@torino.chiesacattolica.it