Catalonia’s 'milestones of a tradition'

What happened last night in San Feliu is a brilliant moment in Guixols’s history. When future generations look back upon that night, they will see how on August 13, 1958, the city experienced a great event that, out of our love for it, we would like to be remembered as the milestone of a tradition.” This was written by a passionate columnist in the Girona newspaper Los Sitios about the night of the first ever edition of the Porta Ferrada music festival of Sant Feliu de Guíxols, which this year celebrates its 62nd edition.

Since that historic night, a great many more summer festivals have been born to become key elements of Catalonia’s cultural landscape. It is not unusual to hear talk of a festival bubble, of an oversupply of these events that are one step away from collapse. Yet the truth is that it is hard to imagine a Catalan summer without festivals, especially musical ones, which in the past few years have evolved to become genuine meeting points of social celebration.

For a couple of months, from mid-June to mid-August, these cultural festivals extend to every corner of the country. It used to be the case that most of the summer festivals were concentrated in places along the Mediterranean coast, but now there are many also to be found inland and in Catalonia’s mountain regions.

And every year what is on offer expands, contradicting the forecasts of some that one impact of the pandemic would be a decline in the number of these events that attract large numbers of people in a single venue. The variety of performance and venue is also impressive, ranging from baroque music performed in small historic churches to the pulse of electronic music projected across wide open spaces crowded with spectators. Almost any style of music one can imagine is on offer somewhere in Catalonia during the summer, performed by the very best artists from home and abroad. And it all began with that single milestone over 60 years ago…

feature Summer festivals