The organisers of Barcelona’s Primavera Sound have issued an apology in response to widespread complaints on social media surrounding the organisation of this year’s event, which kicked off yesterday (June 2).
This year’s edition of Primavera Sound, taking place at its usual Parc del Fòrum site, marks the festival’s first event since 2019 following back-to-back cancellations in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, many attendees have taken to Twitter and other social media platforms over the last 24 hours to complain about dangerous overcrowding and bottlenecks in parts of the festival site, as well as a lack of access to water in the Barcelona heat, and hours-long queues for bars.
In a statement shared via social media, Primavera Sound said: "Today marks the second day of Primavera Sound. We are aware of the problems in the bar services yesterday and we apologise for them. We are working tirelessly to solve them so that we can all enjoy the coming days as we deserve. See you this afternoon."
Security have been taking bottles of water away from attendees at the entrance to the festival site, and only three water access points were available to festivalgoers at yesterday’s opening day. The festival’s organisers have since said the number of water points will be increased to six from today (June 3). In response to the issues at bars, which have seen many report queues of up to two hours, the team behind the event have said more staff will be brought in, and others will be better distributed around the site according to where the larger queues have been reported.
Other complaints from attendees of this year’s event have surrounded the increasingly imposing exclusivity of VIP-only areas around the festival site, which has seen a bridge connecting two parts of the site made available only to those who have paid for a more expensive VIP ticket. Those with standard tickets have been required to take a longer, more crowded walk around the site in order to reach the other part of the festival as a result.
Describing this year’s organisation so far as "a total shitshow," tQ contributor Daniel Dylan Wray said via Twitter: "I’ve been going to Primavera almost yearly for over a decade and last night was the worst I’ve ever seen it in terms of organisation. Insane queues for everything, overcrowding, hard to get to some stages and actually see bands, atrocious access to water."
Another attendee, David Thorp, took to Twitter to say: "Primavera Sound is not safe. Oversold, no water access points, crushes / bottlenecks everywhere making it near impossible to get from stage to stage. Unsure what can be done to fix this by tomorrow but it was by far the worst festival experience I’ve ever had."
A further search for the term ‘Primavera’ on Twitter, as well as a look at responses to the festival’s own tweets over the last 24 hours, reveals numerous other complaints of a similar nature.
This year’s festival features headline appearances from the likes of Pavement, Gorillaz, Charli XCX, The National and more. The Strokes, who had been due to play a headline set at the festival this weekend, were forced to cancel earlier this week due to a case of COVID-19 within their touring group.
The festival continues at Parc del Fórum today and tomorrow, with three further days at the site taking place from Thursday, June 9 to Saturday, June 11.
