Work Begins on Stage for Rolling Stones’ Show in Cuba

Members of the multinational team building the backstage told EFE that work began Monday to erect the imposing stage setting, which will measure some 80 meters (195 feet) long and 20 meters (66 feet) high, and whose components were shipped to the island in more than 60 containers.

Preparations for the massive show have become “a great challenge,” the vice president of the Cuban Institute of Music, Osmani Lopez, said in an article published Tuesday in the Communist Party daily Granma.

With expectations of a huge turnout, Lopez said they have “created the conditions” so the audience can “enjoy the show in a wonderful atmosphere.”

Rumors about a possible Rolling Stones concert in Cuba have swirled since band frontman Mick Jagger made a private visit to the island last October.

The legendary band’s first-ever performance in Cuba will take place at Havana’s Ciudad Deportiva just days after Barack Obama becomes the first sitting U.S. president to visit the island since Calvin Coolidge in 1928.