Over the past 20-plus years, Barcelona’s Primavera Sound has garnered a reputation as one of the best music festivals in the world. The first edition was held in the city’s Poble Espanyol in 2001, but within a few short years had to move to Parc del Fòrum, a much larger seaside venue, due to massive demand.
The 8,000 attendees at the first edition had ballooned to an international audience of over 220,000 by 2019, and the line-up had dramatically morphed from mostly local bands to include some of the biggest acts on the planet.
The 2020 edition was set to be the biggest yet…but then the coronavirus pandemic hit. The festival was then postponed a year due to COVID-19 restrictions, but with the virus still raging in summer 2021, it was delayed once more to 2022.
With COVID restrictions now relaxing all over the world, it seems that Primavera Sound 2022 will indeed go ahead as planned. And the 2-year postponement means that it has accumulated many of the acts set for the past 2 editions, as well as its delayed 20th anniversary celebration.
All this means that the 2022 edition is set to be the biggest yet, and many Costa Rican fans hoping to attend will likely be left disappointed as tickets have already sold out. (If you already have tickets, make sure you check if you need to submit an ETIAS Costa Rica form before finalizing your travel plans).
Music lovers set to attend the festival in Barcelona have over 500 performances to look forward to, spread out over 2 weekends from June 2-12. The line-up has been called “the best in the festival’s history”.
The headliners on the main stages at Parc del Fòrum on the first weekend are set to include Pavement, Bad Gyal, Charli XCX, The National, Amaia, Gorillaz, Cigarettes After Sex, and Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.
The headliners for the second weekend, meanwhile, include Dua Lipa, Lorde,The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Tame Impala, Grimes, and M.I.A.
Additionally, many of the big acts playing at the main event will also play at smaller venues around Barcelona throughout the festival duration as part of the Primavera a la Ciutat event. Tickets for these gigs can be bought individually outside of the main festival pass and have not yet sold out.
Some of the biggest acts playing the Primavera a la Ciutat gigs include Beck, Interpol, Jorja Smith, Megan Thee Stallion, Phoenix, and Rina Sawayama.
The Barcelona event is not the only opportunity for a Primavera experience in Europe this year. The music festival now has several offshoots, including Portuguese event Primavera Porto, which also takes place in June, and Primavera Weekender in Benidorm in November.
It has also been announced that the 2023 edition of the festival will also take place in Arganda del Rey, near Madrid. This event will start a weekend after the Barcelona event and one week before the Porto festival.
However, the biggest new development is the extension of Primavera across the Atlantic to the Americas for the very first time. 2022 will see the inauguration of new Primavera Festivals in the United States, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina.
The first American Primavera event, Primavera Los Angeles, will take place in LA State Historic Park from September 16-18. The festival will carry over many of the headliners from the previous 2022 events.
However, it will also add some new big acts such as Nine Inch Nails and Arctic Monkeys. Several of these will also continue to the later 2022 events.
Next up, Primavera will take advantage of spring in the Southern Hemisphere with 3 new events in Latin American cities. The first, Primavera Sound São Paulo, takes place from October 31-November 6, followed by simultaneous events in Santiago de Chile and Buenos Aires from November 7-13.
The São Paulo event, a co-production with Live Nation Brazil, will take place in the city’s Anhembi District. The festival is expected to bring this district with a long musical history back to vivid life, and is said to be an ideal fit for the event due to its similarity to Barcelona’s Parc del Fòrum.
The Santiago festival, a co-production with Rock Stgo, will be held in Cerrillos Bicentennial Park. “The relationship between Primavera Sound and Chile goes back a long way”, said Primavera director Gabi Ruiz. “ A Primavera Sound in Chile was therefore necessary. It had to happen “.
Finally, the Buenos Aires Primavera Sound takes places in the Argentine capital ‘s Parque de los Niños. “A Primavera Sound in Buenos Aires, in Argentina in general, makes all the sense in the world”, said Ruiz. “We instantly understand each other musically”.
