There are barely a few hours left until a new edition of Primavera Sound begins, the watchword of the festival summer with a line-up that this year includes names such as the Pet Shop Boys – who will perform tonight in the Fòrum park, in a concert free with tickets already sold out–, Blur, Calvin Harris, Depeche Mode or Rosalía. A high-profile proposal that this year will share the limelight with Madrid, where the second weekend of the festival will be held. An event that, with half a million attendees in the last edition, consolidates its position as the most important on the Spanish scene. This is confirmed by the report published this Tuesday by the OBS Business School, which under the title "Economic impact on the live music industry", analyzes a sector that last year had a turnover of 460 million euros.
After overcoming the pandemic slump, the festivals have re-emerged strongly, achieving record attendance figures in 2022. However, along the way, some events have been affected by the current oversupply of events, as well as by the increase in prices, which limits the purchasing power of attendees, according to the report signed by the economist Albert Guivernau. "Demand may not grow as fast as supply," says the author. “Many festivals that were not held during the pandemic have held a longer edition, and this causes festivals to coincide on dates”, a difficulty that adds to the possibility that “festival tourism cannot cope”.
To consolidate this growth, the promoters demand that the administrations "homogenize the regulations at the state level", and unify the regional legislation "in matters of security, capacity, health or emergencies". Measures demanded by mostly national promoters who have been expanding abroad in recent years, "we are a land of festival production, with a way of doing things that is exported to other countries, especially Latin America."
The figures for the music sector, in any case, are positive, with an overall increase of 20% in revenue compared to 2019, the last year before the pandemic, and a list of consolidated festivals headed by Primavera Sound, which last year last was held from June 2 to 12 and attracted 500,700 people, 65% foreigners, with an economic impact of 349 million euros.
Behind the Barcelona festival is Madrid's Mad Cool, which after closing 2022 with 310,000 attendees, this year celebrates its sixth edition from July 6 to 8 with a lineup featuring artists such as Robbie Williams, Red Hot Chili Peppers or Janelle Monáe.
Similar audience figures are presented by Arenal Sound, the veteran Castellón festival that is committed to a local line-up and more competitive prices. Successful formula for a contest recently acquired by the British firm Superstruct Entertainment. In fourth position is Viña Rock, which has been held since 1996 in the Albacete town of Villarrobledo, and which last year brought together 240,000 people.
Regarding the festivals organized in cycles, the report highlights the Marenostrum in Fuengirola as the one that received the most visits, 180,000 people, followed by Noches del Botánico, which since 2016 has been held in the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid , bringing together 122,000 people in the previous edition, a figure slightly higher than Murcia's Noches del Malecón. Behind it is the Icónica Fest of Seville and the Jardins de Pedralbes, veteran of the Barcelona summers, which brought together 75,000 people in its tenth edition. In total, 2.25 million people attended the 10 main festival events last year, an important part of a music sector that concentrated almost 60% of its income in three communities, Madrid (22%), Catalonia (21%) and Andalusia (16%).
"The prospects are good, the sector is growing," explains Albert Guivernau. “The fact of having been locked up for practically two years due to the pandemic makes many people want to live the experience of live music”, which fuels “a growing demand for this type of event, as seen in the billing figures”. The hope is that this 2023 will experience less growth than last year, but enough to "recover lost investments" and thus repay the debts that many developers had to contract to face the million-dollar losses caused by the cancellations of the pandemic. .
