in Italy is standard only for big gigs. despite the stage looks small, this is quite a big festival in a big venue with some hundreds of people. smaller venue/squats usually have no such problems.
anyway I understand that, and this was one of the reasons I always attended gigs in Switzerland and Germany. if the gig was not in a squat (which was often the case of hc/ny bands, etc), they ended up playing in (often too) big metal venues, and it sucked...
last gigs from negative approach, agnostic front, etc. were all like this, and add beefy bouncers, etc. fuck that