Power May Twin Benicàssim

Former Mean Fiddler Music Group chief Vince Power’s first move since buying the company behind Spain’s Benicàssim Festival may be to twin it with a new event in Seville.

More than three years ago Power, fellow Irish promoter Denis Desmond, The Workers Beer Company and a private investor bought 80 percent of the Spanish event. They’ve now bought the remaining 20 percent held by José Luis and Miguel Morán of Maraworld, who established Benicàssim in 1995. No financial details have been revealed.

The event regularly pulls 35,000 per day and is popular with festival tourists, as somewhere between 55 and 60 percent of the crowd come from outside Spain.

It’s long been a favourite with NME, The Observer named it as one of the “Overseas Gems” to visit and The Independent described it as “the discerning indie fan’s European festival of choice.”

Power previously said the festival, which takes place next to the beach on Spain’s Costa del Azahar, could benefit from having a twin.

However, when he tried to do it in 2008 – sharing acts with a simultaneous event he ran at the 15,000-capacity Juan Carlos I Auditorium in Madrid – it clashed with Jose Cadahia’s Summercase, which was happening 20 kilometres across the city at Boadilla del Monte.

“It’s not going to do either of us any good,” Cadahia told Pollstar at the time, explaining that he already spoke to Power and Desmond to ensure the same thing didn’t happen again.

It’s doubtful if either of them would want it to, as Maraworld said 9,000 showed for Benicassim’s new twin, while Summercase appeared not to suffer so much as almost 20,000 turned up.

Power raked in about £13 million from the sale of his third stake in the Mean Fiddler empire.