No more waiting. One of the most anticipated weekends of the year is here. The streets of Barcelona already breathe that special aroma, that festive air, that smell of big days. 19 years ago, a new festival was born in Barcelona. A festival focused on band music, indie-rock, pop and, in short, mostly organic proposals.
Almost 2 decades later, Primavera Sound is here, in the last edition before its expected 20th anniversary, with a line-up, a concept and an ideology based on revolution, new elements, extensive activities and abundant groundbreaking stuff. Normalizing what, until now, was not normal. Normalizing what should always have been normal. Welcome to The New Normal. Welcome to Primavera Sound 2019.
Massive numbers
With the extension of Primavera Bits, an area dedicated to electronic and urban music, and the incorporation of some extra stages in the main area, Parc del Fòrum has increased its capacity to reach 64,500 people per day. There are very few tickets available for each of the days (you can get them here), which means that, from Thursday to Saturday, more than 170,000 people will dance in Primavera Sound.
The organisers firmly believe that the commitment to new horizons has been a huge success: “To open the festival to new audiences will mark an absolute record attendance on Saturday, without leaving aside the entire generation that has grown up with Primavera Sound.”
In total, the event hosts 22 stages. 17 of them are in Parc del Fòrum. The main stages are Seat, Pull & Bear, Primavera and Ray-Ban. Mac DeMarco, Future, Erykah Badu, Charli XCX or Nina Kraviz (Thursday), Carly Rae Jepsen, Miley Cyrus, Tame Impala, Jungle, Kate Tempest or Peggy Gou (Friday) and Solange, James Blake, Nathy Peluso, Rosalía, J Balvin, Róisín Murphy or Modeselektor (Saturday) will perform there.
Electronic music Will play an important role
Nina Kraviz, Peggy Gou and Modeselektor will be the great ambassadors of clubbing electronic music on the main stages, along with local DJ Rosario and Sama Yax. However, other spaces in the Parc del Fòrum will also witness great electronic performances. The Rockdelux Auditorium will host live performances by Apparat and Caterina Barbieri and at Ray-Ban Studios we will have Upsammy, Objekt, Demdike Stare, Anastasia Kristensen, Anthony Naples, Overmono, Roza Terenzi, DJ Marcelle or Aïsha Devi, whose show is posited as one of the most intense of the weekend.
5 of the 17 stages make up the Primavera Bits area, exclusively dedicated to electronic music. There, a street football pitch turned into the stage El Punto will be delivered to the urban proposals (mostly trap style) curated by Yung Beef (of course, we will also have La Zowi live). The Xiringuito will be the earliest stage each day (it opens at 2pm), while Lotus and Desperados Club will enjoy the great majority of clubbing profile performances: Maribou State, Denis Sulta, Jobse, Octo Octa b2b Eris Drew, Steffi, Courtesy, Dr. Rubinstein, Joy Orbison, Helena Hauff, David August, Richie Hawtin, Avalon Emerson, Voiski and Veronica Vasicka are the most outstanding.
Much more than a festival
Primavera Sound is not just 17 stages in Parc del Fòrum. It’s much more. It is, for example, Primavera a la Ciutat: 5 stages located in the centre of the city. Sala Apolo and La [2] de Apolo have been celebrating since Monday. The Day Pro stage was added on Wednesday. Living Primavera will be active from Thursday to Saturday and on Sunday we will premiere the Barcelona stage.
Primavera Sound is also Radio Primavera Sound, with full audiovisual coverage with more than 30 hours of streaming concerts, as well as interviews, analysis, debates and games with fans. The studio of Radio Primavera Sound (broadcaster born this year) will move to Parc del Fòrum to narrate in situ everything that happens during the festival.
Primavera Sound is also Primavera Pro, the series of informative conferences that serve as a meeting point for professionals in the sector and which, from Wednesday to Friday, offers numerous activities, exhibitions, debates and press conferences at the CCCB that will allow journalists and musicians to tackle the most immediate challenges for the future of the music industry.
And Primavera Sound is employment. Adding the different spaces of the festival and the large number of activities that take place from Monday to Sunday in Barcelona, the festival has required up to 6,000 employees, distributed between production, bars, information, cleaning, artists, technicians, logistics, security and transport.
The New Normal
That is the motto under which Primavera Sound takes place this year: The New Normal. Normalizing what should always have been normal, but, unfortunately, it hasn’t. In other words, normalizing parity, the urban scene and commitment.
In 2019, Primavera Sound’s line-up is made up of 50.77% female artists, 41.92% male artists, 6.53% mixed projects and 0.76% self-defined as no binary. However, as the director of the festival says, “hopefully from now on it will no longer be necessary to highlight it”.
The most urban areas of music, until now ignored by the big festivals, have a definitive place and Primavera Sound is no exception. Finally, the festival’s commitment to the sustainability of the planet is absolute. In this edition, the policy of the reusable cups, which can be brought from home or purchased directly on the festival, is being released.
7 days of music in Barcelona; 4 of them in Parc del Fòrum; 3, the central axis of the event, with 16 hours of music per day to make Primavera Sound bigger than ever. Feel welcome.
(Cover Image: © Paco Amate)
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