The Cala Mijas festival, which for two years has been held on the Malaga coast with the presence of artists such as Arcade Fire, The Strokes or Florence The Machine, will not have a third edition. This was announced by its promoter, Last Tour, responsible among others for the BBK Live festival, in a note denouncing “the repeated and serious breaches” of the sponsorship agreement signed by the town council of the Malaga town. Specifically, they claim the non-payment of the “significant sums” in sponsorship for the 2023 edition, a debt “that has persisted despite the continuous payment requirements formulated”, while they regret other problems such as the lack of conditioning and provision of facilities at the venue.
The cancellation comes four months before the scheduled date for the event, August 29, 30 and 31, and when hundreds of tickets have already been sold despite the fact that no artist had been announced. In the previous edition, which brought together 110,000 people in three days, the festival was in the news due to the visit of President Pedro Sánchez, who attended The Strokes concert and was photographed with members of Lori Meyers and Cariño. In the first edition of the festival the line-up included Artic Monkeys, Nick Cave, The Chemical Brothers and Liam Gallagher, among many others.
The agreement between Last Tour and the Mijas City Council, which was then governed by the PSOE (currently it is in the hands of the Popular Party) was signed in 2021 for five editions, and included an investment by the municipality of 6.3 million euros, while the developer committed to investing between 8 and 12 million.
On March 1, the Mijas City Council held an ordinary plenary session where it announced the holding of an extraordinary plenary session to discuss the payment of seven pending invoices from 2023 worth 952,875 euros which, according to a note from the council itself, “have a repair by the Municipal Intervention and had not been inspected during the previous mandate.” In the same plenary session, the municipal government team denounced that the previous officials assumed tasks of conditioning the space where the festival was held that corresponded to the promoter, with expenses that amounted to 500,000 euros. Likewise, he reported a series of expenses that could exceed 2,000,000 euros "that may not correspond to the council", such as the cost of the buses that transported attendees to the camping area.
Previously, in a plenary session held last December, the Mijas finance councilor announced that he would demand from the promoter the payment of a fee for the use of the venue where the festival is held, a public space of 150,000 square meters for which, according to reports eldiario.es, expected to earn 3.3 million euros per year, retrospectively including the amounts corresponding to 2022 and 2023.
The province of Malaga has fifteen summer festivals, including the Starlite Occident in Marbella, the Marenostrum Fuengirola, the Galaxy Sound, the Oh See!, the Brisa Festival, the Bella Festival, the Weekend Beach, the Puro Latino Torremolinos or the Cueva de Nerja festival, among others.
