live music

€132m spent on concert and festival tickets in 2023 in Barcelona region

Dancing giants, correfocs and live music will be part of the festivities

Barcelona’s biggest live music festival cites uncertainty over preparation and legal framework as reasons for calling this year's edition off

Gigs to be streamed free online beginning at 8 pm on Wednesday evening

Aim is to investigate how events in enclosed spaces can go ahead safely during pandemic

Weeklong fair goes more local than ever, featuring Catalan artists and reaching new districts in push to avoid large gatherings

Barcelona group who wowed the world during lockdown swap their terrace for Teatre Grec 

Association of Concert Venues of Catalonia reports 340 cancelled gigs already with more to come

55% of the ticket-holders were from outside of Spain and 125 nationalities were registered

Music and arts festivals fill Catalonia throughout the summer season. In recent years, the number and quality of them have grown exponentially, to include the participation of international artists who sometimes choose these festivals as their only Spanish tour date. So far, Jamiroquai and Pet Shop Boys are amongst the main names announced for Cruïlla Festival, to take place from the 7th to the 9th of July at Barcelona’s Parc del Fòrum. One of the most long-standing festivals, the International Festival of Porta Ferrada, which takes place in the coastal town of Sant Feliu de Guíxols, will have in their line-up Jamie Cullum and UB40, amongst many others. Beyond the festivals, no other than Sir Elton John has also confirmed that he will perform in Barcelona his only concert in Spain. This will be on the 3rd of December. 

The pop diva Beyoncé chose the Catalan capital as her one and only stop in Spain on ‘The Formation World Tour’. Nearly 50,000 fans will enjoy the show, which is set to combine both the diva’s main hits and her latest songs from her album ‘Lemonade’. ‘The Formation World Tour’, which started in Miami last April, will end in September and has sold more than a million tickets so far. The last time Beyoncé visited Barcelona was in 2014, as part of her 'Mrs. Carter World Tour’. Beyoncé’s concert at Barcelona’s Estadi Olimpic confirms that the Catalan capital is an unmissable stop for international music. This year alone, Adele, Coldplay, Beyoncé and Rihanna have chosen Barcelona for their only tour dates in Spain. 

Sónar 2016 closed its doors on its 23^rd edition with 115,500 visitors from a hundred countries. This figure is slightly lower than 2015, but maintains the last five-year average. This year, the voices of artists that had highly critical content had special relevance, noted the organisers of the festival. The co-director of the festival, Ricard Robles, said that foreign nationals who attended were mostly British, then French, German, and Italian, with an increased presence of Americans. Co-director Ventura Barba spoke positively about the sister event to the music festival that ran parallel to it, Sónar+D, which saw the participation of more than 4,500 music professionals. The novelties for Sónar 2017 have been announced, and they include two new cities added to the international route: Istanbul and Hong Kong.

Sónar Festival began its 23^rd edition on Thursday with its first daytime sessions, welcoming the acts The Black Madonna, Kenny Dope (formerly Masters at Work), Mad Professor, sharing the stage with The Spanish Dub Invasion, British MC Lady Leshurr, and a classical piano recital by James Rhodes to the Barcelona sun. This total of 130 eclectic acts are being hosted at the Montjuic fairgrounds, where thousands of participants attended, and will presumably attend again on Friday and Saturday, where the night-time performances will be held at the Gran Via Exhibition Centre. Additionally, Sónar+D also kicked off on Thursday, serving as the intellectual and collaborative sister event to Sónar, holding conferences and activities revolving around the “future of culture, arts and technology”, according to curator, José Luis de Vicente.