Primavera Sound will stay in Barcelona until 2027

Primavera Sound organizers announced on Saturday evening that they will be signing an agreement with the city council this week to stay in Barcelona until at least 2027.

"We're a festival from Barcelona," Primavera Sound co-director Gabi Ruiz said. 

Unlike this year's edition, however, which attracted almost half a million people over two weekends, the next events in the Catalan capital will only take place over one, as had been the case before the pandemic. 

This comes after a series of disagreements between the council and the organizers, who had even suggested they would leave the city altogether in 2023, but then decided to host next year's event in both Barcelona and Madrid. Subsequent editions seem poised to replicate this format – one weekend in the Catalan capital and another in Spanish one – too.

"We would like to go to Madrid and stay there," Ruiz told the press. 

The first edition of Primavera Sound took place in Barcelona in 2001, and since then it has become a fixture on the European festival scene, attracting legendary bands from Radiohead, to Neil Young, Kendrick Lamar or Patti Smith over the years.

But it has also become a point of contention for some locals – especially those who live close to the Parc del Fòrum venue – as thousands upon thousands of music fans flock to one of Europe's most densely populated areas. 

Primavera Sound 2022

Just under 500,000 music fans – 220,000 the first weekend and 240,000 the second – attended the 20^th edition of the festival celebrated this year after pandemic-related disruptions.

The event organizers estimate Primavera Sound will draw in €349 million for the city.

"It's the event that has the greatest economic impact on Barcelona after the Mobile World Congress," co-director Alfonso Lanza said.