Biggest Primavera Sound In History, Greenfield Sets Record

Historic Primavera Sound In Barcelona

Primavera Sound went down over two weekends, June 2-4 and 9-11, and also hosted a week-long program of music and entertainment in the city of Barcelona, Spain.

Promoters counted almost half a million visitors passing through the various gates at the Parc del Forum festival site, a total of 220,500 on the first weekend (June 2: 66,000, June 3: 74,000, June 4: 80,500), and 240,000 on the second weekend (June 9: 79,000, June 10: 81,000, June 11: 80,000).

The city program during the week, dubbed Primavera a la Ciutat, attracted a total of 40,200 visitors. “The event will have an economic impact in Barcelona of €349 million [$365 million],” according to a promoter statement.

See: Primavera Sound Expands To Chile, Argentina & Brazil

As usual, Primavera Sound boasted a stellar lineup, featuring Gorillaz, Dua Lipa, Massive Attack, Tame Impala, Beck, The National, The Strokes, Jorja Smith, Nick Cave & the Bad Seed, Tyler, the Creator, Lorde, Megan Thee Stallion, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and many, many more. Many acts performed at Parc del Fòrum on both weekends, and/or during Primavera a la Ciutat across indoor venues in the city of Barcelona.

A total of 672 performances took place across the entire Primavera Sound 2022 extravaganza. Highlights include Tame Impala covering Last Nite by The Strokes for the first and only time in their career, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard performing five times without repeating a single song, Nick Cave confessing that him and his Bad Seeds had never played Red Right Hand so well, Mos Def making a double cameo at Gorillaz as well as Khruangbin’s concerts, M.I.A. putting together a choir in 48 hours full of local talent, Dua Lipa inviting Angèle on stage for their joint song “Fever,” Kacey Musgraves performing Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams,” and many more.

Next year, Primavera Sound will return to a one-weekend format in its hometown Barcelona, June 1-3, 2023, but will expand to the Spanish capital of Madrid with a second edition, June 8-10, 2023.

See: Primavera Sound Launches Second Spanish Festival In 2023

Rock Music Revived At Greenfield

“Rock music was successfully revived in Interlaken,” Switzerland, the promoters of Greenfield Festival wrote after this years edition, June 9-11.

The first Greenfield after an enforced two-year break attracted 84,000 visitors, which marks a new record, surpassing the 82,000 daily visitors counted in 2019.

This year’s lineup was led by Volbeat, Korn, Billy Talent, Rise Against, The Offspring, Bring Me The Horizon, and many more. “Greenfield has a firm place in the hearts of all the bands and is one of the most popular rock festivals in Europe on the artist side,” commented Stephan Thanscheidt, CEO FKP Scorpio and booker of the festival, adding that this year was particularly special, because of the two-year break. “You finally had the chance to do what you love to do most: play music and celebrate emotionally and euphorically with friends and fans,” Thanscheidt concluded.

Greenfield 2022 came with a couple new additions, including “The Chapel” for all guests in need of some quiet time to recharge, and “Shelter 666,” a dystopian Mad-Max-style area.

The completely booked up Band Support Day featured business professionals like Thanscheidt, Dany Hasenstein (booker, Paléo Arts & Spectacles), Adriano Elia (booker Dachstock & founder DMB Records), Marc Bernegger (management & coaching, Coldkings GmbH), and Joel Meier (CEO RCKSTR-Magazin) sharing their experience in and knowledge about the industry.