Primavera Sound held its first Madrid edition in 2023, happening the weekend after Barcelona at Arganda del Rey’s Ciudad del Rock with the same lineup. Its first day wound up getting cancelled due to “persistent severe weather,” and now festival organizers have announced that they won’t hold a Madrid edition in 2024. “Although both the city of Madrid and the whole region welcomed us with open arms, with a warmth that was mirrored in the institutions, the cultural agents and of course the audience, the external difficulties that the festival had to face in the final stretch of the pre-production gave rise to one of the most complicated events that Primavera Sound has ever had to face,” a message from organizers reads. “And today, in the run-up to 2024, the city does not have a site able to host an event of this magnitude and format in terms of audience demands, production requirements, and musical show.”
“As a consequence, although the evaluation of the festival was more than satisfactory on a musical level, the expectations we had were not fulfilled and the experience of the festivalgoers due to several logistical aspects was not the desired one,” Almudena Heredero, director of Primavera Sound Madrid, said. “Inside the Ciudad del Rock we experienced a festival full of great musical moments, but we are not oblivious to the annoyances. And that leads us to understand that, now, the conditions are not right for Madrid to have a Primavera Sound as it deserves in 2024.”
“We will continue to study the possibility of holding a Primavera Sound in Madrid because we are maintaining a continuous and constructive dialogue with the institutions of the city,” Heredero continued. “The determination to continue this relationship by all the parties involved exists, and the relationship with the city, which has existed for a long time, has only grown closer over the last few months. The thing is that, right now, there are no guarantees that it will be possible to organise a festival in 2024 that meets the quality standards that Primavera Sound is used to offering. It has been a first edition from which we have learned many lessons and we don’t want to ignore them for the future.”
Primavera Sound will return to Barcelona on May 30-June 2, 2024, and to Portugal on June 7-9. Stay tuned for the lineups.
The festival held its first (and so far only) Los Angeles edition in 2022; another has not currently been announced.