Features
Spain Live Business Continues To Grow
Business was booming in Spain in 2016, at least for the big players.
AP Photo / Manu Fernandez – Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
Camp Nou, Barcelona, Spain
Overall revenues, as calculated by the country’s promoters association APM, reached euro 223.3 million in 2016, a 14.7 percent increase compared with the euro 194.6 million generated in the previous year.
The association points out that major tours in large venues were the main contributors to a third consecutive year of growth. Bruce Springsteen attracted the most people as an international artist: 160,000 fans witnessed The River tour, which saw The Boss and his E Street Band take over Barcelona’s Camp Nou, San Sebastián’s Estadio de Anoeta and Madrid’s Estadio Santiago Bernabéu.
Coldplay came in second, attracting 120,000 people to two shows at Barcelona’s Olympic Stadium (
Manuel Carrasco was the most successful Spanish act, playing 48 concerts in front of a total audience of 282,000. Carrasco also broke an attendance record at the Estadio de la Cartuja in Seville, where some 45,000 people congregated to see his June 11 show.
Margins for small and medium-sized businesses were “meager” in 2016, according to the APM. Spanish cultural businesses still suffered from a 21 percent VAT in 2016. The country’s government has announced to reduce the cultural VAT to 10 percent in 2017.
APM names secondary ticketing as another challenge for the sector. Upcoming tours that suffered from the phenomenon include Bruno Mars and Joaquín Sabina. The association calls for regulation of the speculative online resale of tickets and demands that the old resale law from 1982 be updated.
2016 saw cancellations of festivals but also new ones being established, such as Mad Cool Festival, the second edition of which will take place July 6-8 in Madrid’s
The list was led in 2016 by Arenal Sound, which attracted 300,000 people over six days, followed by Rototom Sunsplash (250,000 over eight days), and