Welcoming around 75,000 people per day to Barcelona, with most of those being
international attendees, last year Primavera Sound made headlines by announcing three female headliners; Charli xcx, Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter, a first in the festival’s storied history. But despite this outstanding lineup, during a talk at this year’s ISE conference in Barcelona, Primavera Sound, Head of Press, Marta Pallarès spoke of the mounting difficulty in securing headliners. She explained: “Artists want to be increasingly in control of their own production, of their own ticketing, of their own vision, and that is way easier to achieve with a stadium show or within your own tour.”
Primavera found itself in a lucky position when the festival was able to secure the European exclusive of the SWEAT Tour with Troye Sivan, presenting its own technical issues, with the production requiring catwalks and huge LED Screens. “We are lucky because Charli xcx is going to play on Thursday, which is our first day,” Pallarès explained. “Had she been programmed for Friday I don’t think we would have been able to build everything. If the festival was running the day before until 6am and then we needed to build the catwalk and everything else it wouldn’t be possible.”
Another way Primavera seeks to secure talent is by promoting them at the start of their career and finding artists whose values match the festival’s. Pallarès said: “We have always relied on creating our own headliners. “Charli xcx has been at Primavera since she was a newer artist, we had her closing the third biggest stage in 2024 but never the main stage. This year she’s a headliner. We have always opted to bring in new talent to try to make them grow and the booking guidelines are different for us it’s not always about the biggest name out there it’s about what fits for us.”
Pallarès also reflected on the choices consumers are making between stadium shows and
festivals in the face of a cost-of-living crisis. “With the amount of stadium shows there are,
people only have so much disposable income,” she explained. “Do they go see that big
stadium show or do they go to a festival? That seems to be the decision people are having to make right now.”
Later in the talk, Pallarès touched on other issues facing festivals, such as inclement weather. As a board member for YOUROPE – the European Festival Association – she has heard how festivals from Italy to Poland have had to deal with extreme weather.
With weather affecting everything from beer sales due to rain or wind causing the sound to
travel further, Primavera has opted to employ on-site meteorologists to prepare for any eventuality.
Looking to the future, Pallarès is hopeful that collectively we can tackle these issues: “I think that working together is going to be important, because it is only collective thinking and knowledge that is going to help us all. We need to keep this in mind for the survival of
everyone, we will need to think how to solve these topics that are affecting us all as a
society.”
Primavera Sound Barcelona takes place at the Parc del Fòrum from 4 to 8 June 2025 and
Primavera Sound Porto is held at the Parque da Cidade from 12 to 15 June 2025.
Words: James Robertson
Photos: Marta Pallarès and Festival Insights
