The pyromusical, dedicated this year to commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Sónar Festival, said goodbye to a new edition of the Mercè festivities last night. The final show, which this time could not include the evolution of the Font Màgica, disabled by the drought, was one of the most followed events of the four-day celebrations that this year, unlike many others, have benefited for the good weather, which has invited thousands of people to take to the streets to enjoy the soiree.
On the negative balance, as is also unfortunately tradition, some incidents – minor compared to those of the 2022 edition – that tend to be concentrated around the busiest stages.
The Urban Police and the Mossos d'Esquadra once again had extra work on Sunday night, the last of the big concerts in the festive programme. The police forces arrested at least 14 people, nine of them in the area around the University Zone, where the musical events with the largest influx of public took place this year, which in previous editions of the Mercè had a place on Maria Cristina Avenue. . In any case, in this first major festival chaired by the new mayor, the socialist Jaume Collboni, the City Council highlighted the absence of serious incidents.
One of the most successful shows this year, due to the novelty factor it represented, was the one performed on Sunday night by 200 perfectly synchronized drones in the sky of Barcelona, in front of the beach, which brought together some 80,000 attendees. On the same Sunday night, the concerts on the Menéndez y Pelayo stage, in the Zona Universitària, were followed by about 20,000 people and another 8,000 gathered at the Moll de la Fusta.
A relevant fact about the festivities has been the massive use of public transport, and specifically the subway. On Sunday alone, 1,263,000 trips were recorded on the suburban route, 19.5% more than on the same day of the 2019 holidays.
