Music Festival Destinations: Spain.

Spain is a fabulous holiday destination for millions of tourists every year with its variety of climates, landscapes and islands with most heading to the Mediterranean beaches in the south. Steeped in history Spain has a plethora of cultural festivals as well as some popular growing music festivals.  

Spain is famous for its paella and football along with its beaches and of course the party island of Ibiza. The locals are friendly and welcoming thanks to its reliance on tourism with mostly warm climates making it an ideal destination for an outside music festival. English is spoken by about 28% of the population and that percentage rises substantially in regions with a high penetration of tourism. Spain is known for its fiestas and other cultural festivals with flemanco and food being the primary focus.

The Big Ones.
Spain has a good selection of mega festivals with over 100,000 visitors that seem to get larger every year and the good news is that there are four good mega festivals to choose from in 2021 

Benicassim Festival (FIB)
Situated in the seaside resort of Benicassim in the Valencian Community one of Spain’s largest festivals with 150,000 visitors over four days. The main genres are Pop, Dance, Indie rock, Indie pop and Electro. The festival is scheduled this year for 15th –18th July 2021. 

Arenal Sound
Arenal Sound takes place on El Arenal beach, in the town of Burriana (Castellón province) attracting up to 260,000 visitors each year to experience mixed genres of Indie rock, Indie pop, Indietronics, Indie and Hip hop. The festival goes ahead this year between 27th July and 1st August 2021 

Dreambeach Villaricos
Taking place on the beach of Palomares Villarico this EDM festival attracts up to 175,000 visitors each year to experience EDM genres of Techno, Trance, Breakbeat, Drum and bass, Dubstep, Hardstyle. It is scheduled this year for 4th – 8th August 2021  

Rototom Sunsplash 
Rototom Sunsplash is Europe’s largest reggae festival which takes place every summer at Benicàssim, a few miles north of Valencia. The focus is very much on reggae and the event can run for up to ten days getting about 250,000 reggae fans each year. The good news is that it is on this year scheduled for 16th – 22nd August 2021. 

The Large Ones.
The large music festivals in Spain have mostly been cancelled for 2021 and postponed to 2022. There is just one notable festival confirmed for 2021. 

Cruilla Barcelona 
Cruïlla (which means crossroads in Catalan) features mixed genres including Ska, Pop, Hip-hop, Reggae, Folk, Rock, World music and Electronic. 77,000 visitors attend each year and it’s scheduled for 8th July 2021.

Azkena Rock Festival
This is Spain’s primary Rock festival taking place in Vitoria-Gasteiz with 40,000 attending each year. The festival has been cancelled this year and is now scheduled for 17th - 18th June 2022 

Barcelona Beach Festival 
Spain's second largest EDM music festival takes place in Platja del Fòrum, Barcelona. It attracts in excess of 70,000 visitors each year. Unfortunately, it is cancelled for 2021 and been moved to 2nd July 2022. 

Bilbao BBK Live 
Getting its name from the festival sponsors, the savings bank Bilbao Bizkaia Kutxa, the mixed genre Pop and Rock festival takes place in the city of Bilbao each year and regularly attracts over 100,000 festival-goers. It has been postponed to 7th – 8th July 2022.

Spain was hit particularly hard by the coronavirus pandemic with cancellations still prevalent for the 2021 festival season. As with travelling internationally anywhere in 2021 festival-goers should check potential travel restrictions and likely infection prevention protocols in place including rapid COVID-19 tests and the possibility of mandatory vaccine passports. For those that make it to one of Spain’s music festivals they will be sure to enjoy a warm welcome and great weather. 

For any event organiser planning their music festival using a software management platform like Festival Pro gives them all the functionality they need manage every aspect of their festival logistics. The guys who are responsible for this software have been in the front line of event management for many years and the features are built from that experience and are performance artists themselves. The Festival Pro platform is easy to use and has comprehensive features with specific modules for managing artists, contractors, venues/stages, vendors, volunteers, sponsors guestlists and ticketing. 

Photo by Tom Fisk from Pexels

<< Back to articles