Sónar Lisboa establishes itself as the gateway to the European festival season

The event had 27,000 visitors in its four venues. 60% of the attendees were foreigners and there was an audience of 60 nationalities, with a predominance of Spanish, French and English among foreigners. Palau noted an attractive growth path to exploit: Lisbon is significantly closer to New York than Barcelona or Berlin. A few hours of flight less is a few hours of flight less.

Sónar Lisboa 2023 will be held from March 31 to April 2. This is the weekend before Easter. Like this year. An important sample letter it is this porch position of the holiday period and at the same time of the European festival season.

Program aside (of course it counts, but the Sónar brand is above), another important card is the spectacular nature of the spaces where it takes place. In this sense, the continuity of the Hub Criativo do Beato, an old state-owned flour and derivatives factory that has struck as the headquarters of Sónar+D, is uncertain. It simply happens that due to its status as a hub (under construction) sooner or later it will be forced to prioritize stable activities. In any case, the replacement that is considered if the move is necessary is not a joke: the stunning Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT).

It is not an issue that makes Palau sleepless. “About the festival containers, we’ll see,” she said. The priority, she added, is strengthen connections with the creative and scientific communities of the Portuguese capital.

The grace of Sónar Lisboa (of all Sónar outside of Barcelona) is that it has “differentiating factors”, continued Palau.

One jumps out: Portugal is very African. Mestizaje is a national treasure that provided revealing performances (Pongo; remember the name of this neo-kuduro bombshell) and disc jockey sessions (Nidia, Marfox).

Another is more subtle: Sónar Lisboa, at least in this stage of growth, gives artists the opportunity to be more daring. Richie Hawkin played four hands with Hector Oaks. With vinyl records! “It’s something he hadn’t done for a long time and that, he confessed to me, he wouldn’t have dared to do at Sónar Barcelona,” said Palau. Because of the pressure and the sure result.

In a rare moment of frivolity, at least for the gallery, Palau celebrated that “in Lisbon, as in Barcelona, ​​the public takes the ‘outfit’ chosen to go to Sónar very seriously.” Indeed, “many of the attendees seemed to be itching to get on stage.” All things considered, nothing frivolous. You don’t go to an event in any way.

As for Arca, the main course of the Sónar that will be held in Barcelona from July 16 to 19 and that in Lisbon offered a relentless show but with hardly any presence of its characteristic interpretive elements: «Unfortunately, we will only know what he will do in Barcelona a few days before”. This is Ark.

Attending a musical show just for the place where it happens can seem like a fool from the boat (although in essence high school students have been doing it for 175 years, although other factors come into play there). But if the place is the Coliseu dos Recreios, things change.

A circular theater crowned by a dome with a radius of 25 metres, it was inaugurated in 1890. It has an empty stalls, a grandstand, two levels of boxes (with latches!) and an upper gallery not suitable for fast-moving fans. All open to the public. In the early hours of Sunday It was a pressure cooker with the boxes and the gallery as escape valves, during the performances of Leon Vynehall, Rroxymore and Bicep and the ‘sets’ of Chloé Robinson, Floating Points and Rui Vargas. A digital ‘allnighter’ comparable to the great ‘allnighters’ of northern soul.