Lluís Tarafa points out one of the clapas that make the parterres of the Pedralbes Gardensnot far from the royal palace, in Barcelona. “Here was vegetation until two years ago. But then they put many stands for sponsors and drinks around the Hercules fountain, although we asked that they be moved to a gravel walk to avoid damage,” says Tarafa, a member of the Zona Universitària Neighborhood Association. The entity blames the decline “irrecoverable & rdquor; that detects in part of the park the scenarios and the booths with which the Jardins de Pedralbes Festival occupies land every summer. On the other hand, the city council maintains that the monumental site is “in a Very good condition”.
The Generalitat resolve this Thursday which of the four companies in contention organize the series of shows. Far from abating, the public who goes to concerts is growing: in 2015 there were less than 30,000 spectators, more than 60,000 in 2019 and it has been close to 100,000 in the last two editions.
The gardens are preserved with the highest level of heritage protection and are brittle, recognized the Government and the Barcelona City Council in the monitoring commission of last year’s festival. Even so, the consistory accepted the request of the firm that has organized all the editions to date, Concert Studioto increase the stalls to 3,300 attendees in 16 of the 33 large-format performances in 2022, despite the fact that the contract set the limit at 2,400 people.
The consistory claimed “public interest & rdquor; in the expansion of the capacity due to the reduction that it entailed in the ticket prices. The promoter began selling them before the contest was submitted for the first time to a public tender to be awarded. The Generalitat reluctantly tolerated it, warning that it could not be repeated in future editions.
In the agreement between both institutions, it was stated that the increase in the public entailed “greater pressure on some classified and fragile gardens & rdquor ;. It was added that it would be necessary to “be very careful in protecting these spaces & rdquor ;. In 2022, it was also approved to expand the almost 6,000 square meters initially granted to 11,000. “Although now it is limited to 6,000 again, we are concerned that it will end up exceeding it again,” says Tarafa.
highest rate
The Generalitat is now the owner of the property, after completing the assignment of the town hall, and is in charge of contracting the event for the first time. As he defended last year, the Catalan executive reaffirms that the capacity is restricted to 2,400 spectators. It also reduces the park’s occupancy days to 45, far from the more than three months that the council granted last year, including assembly and disassembly tasks.
In addition, the Government’s General Directorate of Heritage claims a rate of at least €3,393 per day to the dealer. The city council also charged a fee last year, never required in the nine previous editions, although it applied a discount to Concert Studio: it paid 850 euros for each of the days of the event, below the 3,790 euros stipulated in the tax ordinances of the consistory, which exempted from payment the days of installation and uninstallation of the scenarios. Barcelona raised a contribution of 42,500 euros, while the Generalitat raises the income to 152,685 euros for this year and 458,055 euros for the three years in which the contract is extended.
Although it appreciates some of the changes, the Zona Universitària neighborhood movement believes that the musical event is still oversized. “Nowhere else in Catalonia with garden areas is such a long festival held& rdquor;Tarafa emphasizes. In the allegations to the award process, the neighborhood association blames the festival for committing “destruction& rdquor; year after year and plunge into an “advanced state of deterioration & rdquor; to the site, declared a Cultural Asset of National Interest. He believes that the capacity should be reduced to 1,900 attendees and reduce the performances to about 20 to preserve the gardens.
The municipal government replies that the promoter “replaces all the damage that occurs due to intensive use & rdquor; which takes place during performance season. The Generalitat also demands it now. A municipal report after the 2021 edition detected 122 incidents at the end of the contest. Concert Studio had repaired twenty when the festival curtain came down. The rest involved, above all, breaks in the irrigation network, damage to tree branches and damage to flower beds and grass, which had to be quantified a posteriori for the company to pay for them.
The council states that the park suffers “normal wear and tear in spaces that are fragile by definition.” In any case, he adds that the Pedralbes Gardens are among the least affected in the city “because of their little influx“.
affected plants
Tarafa points out the bald spots where grass and plants are scarce at different points in the park. The Zona Universitària Neighborhood Association has also located drainage pipes that stick out in the flower beds, for which it also blames the festival. It indicates that each of these rather bare stripes coincide with sections in which stops and beach bars of the contest were placed. “Two years ago it was almost more of a fair than a festival, with sofas and bars. Areas with Mediterranean-type undergrowth have been devastated,” Tarafa complains.
Related news
The entity attributes to “the exploitation and massification of the park during nine years of festival& rdquor; that flower beds and original flora “have been definitively lost & rdquor;, to be replaced by “conventional grass & rdquor; and “exotic plants & rdquor; of “fast growth or low cost & rdquor ;. “The park no longer has the same vegetation that existed before 2013,” denounces the association. He also criticizes that access to the gardens is restricted after 7:30 p.m. when the concerts are held, despite being declared a climate refuge.
“They have been used plants that were not suitable in certain cases, although some that were planted for rapid growth have been eliminated. Actions have been taken to partially fix the damage, but sometimes the deterioration is faster than the recovery”, Tarafa assesses. The municipality responds that “affected plants are replaced with specimens of the same species”the same as in the rest of the historical parks.