The co-payment system will last for Sant Jordi. But we will open reflection within the sector”, said Èric del Arco, president of the G remi de Llibreters de Catalunya, in a press conference yesterday at the Ateneu Barcelonès to advance how the celebration is planned, which will take place on a weekday for the first time since the pandemic and which expects to repeat the figures of 2023, with the sale of 1.87 million copies and an accumulated turnover during the week of 24 million euros.
The technical secretary of the guild, Marià Marín, was also present at the meeting; the Minister of Culture, Natàlia Garriga; the Councilor for Culture and Creative Industries of the City Council, Xavier Marsé, and Jordi Ferré, representing the Chamber of Books, who explained that 2024 will be the first year that bookstores and publishers will have to pay to have a stand in some of the “professional areas” of Barcelona. That is, in those that require certain services (lighting, security…) and that are located in central points of the city: Plaça Universitat, Plaça Sarrià, Plaça Orfila de Sant Andreu, Passeig Lluís Companys , Carrer Gran de Gràcia, and the Rambla, cradle of this festivity, which recovers in its entirety, from Canaletes to Santa Mònica.
The price will be from 80 euros for six meters of booth, if you are part of the guild, and 100, if not, with the possibility of choosing between 12, 18 or 24 meters. There will be more professional zones in which no payment will be made and which are located in the Diagonal-les Corts area, the Rambla del Poblenou, the Passeig Sant Joan-Arc de Triomf and next to the Gabriel García Márquez Library, where the day before Children’s and young adult literature writer David Walliams will deliver the keynote address.
More than a hundred associations, entities and people from the cultural field denounced in mid-March what they consider the “privatization” of Sant Jordi’s day and signed a manifesto in which they called for “a popular festival “. Del Arco, who described the previous model as “unfeasible”, responded to all the demonstrations: “We are very excited to celebrate Sant Jordi, but we also like that we can work with optimal conditions. And in Barcelona we have found a way that allows us to do it well, taking into account that they have gone from 186 stops in 2017 to 435 this 2024 and that for the first time they are reaching seven districts”. The new fee hopes to raise a maximum of 40,000 euros, which means “between 15% and 17% of the total cost” of Sant Jordi.
Councilor Garriga invited us to “turn our gaze” and recalled that “the Administration provides around 85% for this activity”, which means “a very clear bet”, since “the usual is that whoever makes and promotes the activity make a contribution”.
The cost of all this amounts, according to the figures offered by Ferré, to more than 245,000 euros. The Generalitat contributes 175,000 euros, and the City Council, 30,000, in addition to the logistics of the Urban Guard.
The Book Chamber is convinced that “the implementation of spaces dedicated to the book and the rose have been key to the rationalization of the festival, apart from the improvements in security, efficiency and services”. Once again, Sant Jordi breaks records in different areas. There will be 336 stops (16 more than last year), in addition to a hundred more in front of bookstores, so that the total will be 435. The footage is extended to 3,356 meters, as well the stops facilitated for the signatures of authors, 214, one more than the last 23 April.
Another peculiarity is that the name of the best-selling books will not be made public on the same night of April 23. “A list with the trends of the five best-selling books in each category will be published”, explained the president of the Booksellers Guild, who acknowledges that he has “taken note of what happened last year”, when several titles rose and step down to the podium The measure – changing lists for “trends” – left doubts among the attendees as to whether it would avoid previous controversies. They promised that the “definitive” list will be made public on April 29.
