Alex Trelinski
LIVE music concerts and festivals in Spain during 2023 reported a 26% increase in turnover- nearly €579 million.
The figures come from the Association of Music Promoters(APM) at Friday’s presentation of the Live Music Yearbook.
The music industry has beaten the previous record of €459 million recorded in 2022 and has been constantly growing since 2014, with the exception of the Covid pandemic years.
APM president, Albert Salmeron, said: “We don’t think there is a bubble and we think on the contrary that there is still a long way to go.”
“Live music has become a form of leisure and access to culture that has become normalised compared to 10 years ago and the sector evolves organically and progressively year after year.”
The APM revealed that the Arenal Sound festival in Burriana(Castellon) was the highest-grossing festival last year, bringing together 300,000 people over its six days.
Second was Primavera Sound Barcelona (243,000 in five days) and Viña Rock, in the Albacete province town of Villarobledo (240,000 in four days).
The three days of Mad Cool 2023 brought together 202,000 people in Madrid while the four days of the Beniccasim International Festival in Castellon attracted 180,000 music fans.
By region, ticket sales were the heaviest in Madrid, Andalucia and, especially Catalunya, which hosted many stadium concerts featuring big names like Coldplay, Bruce Springsteen and Beyonce- accounting for 26.35% of the national turnover.
Albert Salmeron said: “Last year was unique, because so many tours built up after the pandemic break and we thought that there could still be a drop in ticket sales, but it was’nt like that.”
It’s not all good news, as Salmeron reflected: “Concert halls above all are suffering and there is work to be done, because they are also our laboratory, our R+D.”
Coldplay drew the biggest numbers of international visitors, with four gigs attracting over 221,000 people.
They were followed by Harry Styles (120,000 in two shows) and Bruce Springsteen (115,850 in two concerts).
The most successful Spanish live act was Manuel Carrasco, who brought together more than 365,000 people in 28 concerts, ahead of Melendi (308,000 spectators in 37 concerts).
As for venues, the Marenostrum Fuengirola, in Malaga, had the highest overall attendance(189,000 attendees in 33 evenings), followed by Madrid’s Noches del Botanico (over 152,000 in 45 nights) and Murcia’s Las Noches del Malecon (131,000 in 44 concerts).
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