Primavera Sound

Primavera Sound (commonly referred to as Primavera) is an annual music festival held at the Parc del Fòrum in Barcelona, Spain, during late May and early June. It was founded in 2001 by Pablo Soler, Gabriel Ruiz and Sònia Saura as "a showcase for Spanish noise bands", originally held at the Poble Espanyol before moving to the Parc del Fòrum, a much larger site on the seafront, in 2005. It is one of the largest and most-attended music festivals in Europe and the biggest in the Mediterranean.

The festival's image was originally oriented around indie rock, but in recent years has seen a larger presence of genres such as hip hop, electronic dance music and pop. In contrast to most other European festivals, traditionally the first bands go on at 4:00 pm, the headliners begin at midnight, and the latest acts play until 6:00 a.m. Beginning in 2019, Primavera Sound became the world's first major music festival to achieve gender-equal lineups under the tagline "The New Normal". It was also the first to use exclusively mobile tickets.

Originally a one-day event, a second day was added beginning in 2002, and the 2004 edition became the first to feature a three-day lineup. In 2008, the festival began hosting free shows for ticketholders in local venues across Barcelona, beginning a tradition now known as Primavera a la Ciutat. No festival was held in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It returned in 2022 with a two-week format for the first time, combining most bookings from the missed years, before reverting to a one-week event in 2023.

The success of the festival led to an international expansion to Porto in 2012 at the Parque da Cidade, which takes place a week after the main edition. The festival began to hold North and South American editions in 2022. In 2023, a nearly identical lineup was also featured in Madrid.

Sonic Youth, Wilco, PJ Harvey and the National have all headlined the main festival a record four times, while Pixies, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Interpol, Pulp and My Bloody Valentine have done so three times.

Each Primavera Sound between 2009 and 2022 set new attendance records, growing from its small origins of just 7,700 tickets sold in 2001. The 2022 festival was visited by 460,500 people, the fourth-most attended music festival in the world that year, while generating €349 million in revenue for the city of Barcelona. The New York Times noted in 2014 that "the festival is sometimes called the Coachella of Europe", but without the "celebrity spotting" and "fashion and marketing trends" that the American festival is known for.

The name "Primavera Sound" was first used for a series of concerts held at the Sala KGB venue in Barcelona in 1994, the first on 9 April. It continued to promote local indie and noise shows in Spain throughout the 1990s, but founder Pablo Soler was able to take the name back for a festival that he began planning in 2000. The first edition was held on 28 April 2001 at the Poble Espanyol, an open-air architectural museum on top of the Montjuïc hill. It featured four stages and 19 acts including Armand van Helden, Carl Craig, Los Planetas, Unkle and Yasuharu Konishi, the former frontman of Japanese band Pizzicato Five. Soler said he wanted to start the festival "as a showcase for Spanish noise bands." The festival differed from most of its other European counterparts like Glastonbury by being held within a city rather than in a large camping site. A ticket cost 5,000 peseta (€30).

Primavera Sound expanded to a second day in 2002, which took place on 17 and 18 May. Friday's headliners were Pulp and Spiritualized, while Saturday was headlined by Echo & the Bunnymen and Tindersticks. Other prominent performers included Aphex Twin, Camera Obscura, Cat Power, J Mascis and The Moldy Peaches, whose set was their only concert in Spain for the next 21 years. Lift to Experience cancelled their appearance because a member's wife suddenly died. From 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., an hour before the first sets started, the Primavera Sound Film Festival was also held. ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead headlined a launch party on the eve of the festival, held at Sala Apolo for €9.