More than 76,000 people have passed through the Cruïlla Festival over four days that concluded this Saturday with a lineup where local artists shone, such as Antònia Font, Leiva, Amaia or Stay Homas. A protagonism of those from here that is reflected in the public, vindicating a closeness that transcends the musical to delve into the commitment to develop a sustainable festival.
"We have consolidated a dream," Jordi Herreruela, the festival's director, stated with satisfaction this Saturday, highlighting that it marks a new model for the sector, "where friendliness, comfort, and treatment of people is as important, if not more, than the sign". And these people are one of the characteristics that define the event, Barcelona par excellence. 61% of attendees are from the city of Barcelona itself, while another 29% come from the province. Only 7% is from the rest of Catalonia, and even less, 3% from Spain, with a negligible presence of a foreign public. Of all these attendees, 51% are repeaters, which helped the director to talk about the "consolidation" of a brand with a poster similar to other events of the same type, but with a "different" atmosphere.
"We are targeting a local audience, and 80% of the broadcasts from festivals have to do with public travel," Herreruela recently recalled as a starting point to explain all the progress made in terms of sustainability. From the outset, Cruïlla can boast of being the first major festival that is powered exclusively by the electrical network, sending the noisy generators to history, a cross for decades of any musical performance worth its salt. A measure that has required the collaboration of the supplier, Endesa, responsible for setting up the Besós substation to deal with the consumption contingencies of an event that, at its peaks, can reach 1,000 kW, the equivalent of the consumption of 350 homes. In this way, the emission of 36 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere will be saved and yes, it has an economic cost, that of an intermediate artist of the poster.
Another type of saving that has been pursued is that of inconvenience to the neighbors, for which the end of the sessions on Thursday and Friday was brought forward, and the stages were relocated in order to reduce the sound impact. Nothing could be done, on the contrary, with the problems caused by public transport. "Having it cut off is a big problem," lamented Herreruela, who also missed a greater presence of taxis in the area.
More visible to the public has been another of the changes introduced at the festival, such as the plastic cups, which break with the increasingly widespread custom of personalizing them in order to encourage their reuse at other events. "In 2019 we were the first to apply the zero plastics policy, this year we began the path to be a zero waste festival," says Herreruela convinced. Changing from one glass model to another means going from the 300,000 liters of water consumed in carving and rebuilding 200,000 glasses to the 12,000 liters consumed in cleaning, a process that can be carried out in up to 150 occasions.
Many of these glasses ran yesterday to combat the hot day that began with Suu's performance, pure energy that jumped electric guitar in hand onto the Vueling stage with Boom. Under a sun of justice, the 23-year-old singer offered a concert that the keyboards marked in a happy and summery key with easily digestible pop songs such as the chanted Tant de bo, You are not so special, I think (that tk) from her latest album , or the new cheap Postal, dart to posturing so in vogue at this time.
At the same time, Dani Fernández offered his torn voice at Oxfam Intermón asking for claps from the public while he sang his heartbreaking loves accompanied by two rock guitars in If your legs, Artificial or I just want to dance, with which he made the entire audience jump . A concert that featured the voice of Juancho, Leiva's brother, in Plan fatal.
With the hot audience it was time to take off the galaxies of Antònia Font, who since their return have become accustomed to filling large stages like last night's Estrella Damm. Last night, with Un minut stroboscopica, they embarked on a new journey through cities, stars and deserts driven by the voice of Pau Debon, who enjoyed making the audience dance and let loose in Mecanismes. The Majorcans will count on the complicity of that local public that the Cruïlla boasts, ready to sing "Things are not easy for anyone inside this igloo", remembering that "because you are so unreal we love you all the same" or raising the voice in chorus to say that "I'm sure of one thing, I'm coming with you".
The concert flowed along the lines of pop, with sound journeys like that of Astronauta rhyming, with the distorted guitar of Joan Miquel Oliver, or at the other extreme the intimate phrases of Ballarines de ballet or Amants perfectes, performed against a sidereal background. A repertoire that faced the final part with a party of hits that made the public jump like Alpinistes -samurais, Wa yeah! or Calgary 88 to close with Viure sense tu, confirming once again how successful the Antònias were when they returned to the stage.
Leiva took over amid the roar of his fans in an evening that continued with performances by the British Placebo, Amaia Romero and Stay Homas, among other artists, to finally close the festival after three in the morning with a performance by Carlangas.
