The operators continue their work against the clock to make the final touches to the installations that, starting tonight, will host in the gardens of the Pedralbes palace the series of concerts that, starting with Delafé and las Flores Azules, will fill with music the Barcelona summer at the Les Nits de Barcelona festival. On one side, the chairs and tables of the village are placed there, while, on the other, the stage where the first eight nights of concerts will be held is being completed, all being careful not to harm a vegetation that is holy and sign of the historic garden.
Thirty artists will perform over the next 45 days at the top of Diagonal, names of international stature, such as Natalia Lafourcade, Melody Gardot or Sebastián Yatra, as well as prestigious local and national musicians, such as Alizzz, David Bisbal, Els Friends of the Arts or Elephants.
They will all go through the Barcelona Nights, despite the fact that they will not perform in the same place, as two stages have been set up. The first, with capacity for 1,000 people, will offer the performances of the first eight days, some of which have already sold out, as is the case of Las Migas, Buhos or the band that premieres the festival, Delafé y las Flores blues It is a space located among the trees and designed to follow the concerts on foot, with tickets between 7 and 22 euros and direct access to the restaurant area, which has classic names of local gastronomy such as Casa Pepe, Kao or Camarasa.
The second stage will be the classic auditorium located in front of the historic palace, built in 1924 to serve as the residence of King Alfonso XIII. A space with a capacity for 2,340 people whose construction will not be completed until next week, a consequence of the assembly and disassembly dates set by the public tender and which have turned the entire preparation for Les Nits de Barcelonar into a race against the clock since the award was made public in April, just three months to give birth to a festival. In reality, the smaller stage is a response to the impossibility of having the main auditorium installed in time. “This stage is set up in three weeks, why don’t we, in the meantime, do concerts in another space for another type of artists?” comments Vanessa Llopart, CEO of the Clipper’s group, who came up with the team , and emphasizes that with this formula “the festival will evolve with the days”.
“It’s a park and you have to take care of it, we have to step on the grass as little as possible”, explains Vanessa Llopart, and regrets that this year’s drought has significantly affected the vegetation. This attention is taken to the extreme of not decorating the trees and bushes as was usual in other years, or installing ultraviolet lights under the temporary bridge that crosses one of the flowerbeds to prevent plant growth from being affected. The structure of the auditorium has even been modified so as not to touch a single leaf of the palm trees that preside over the entrance to the palace. “They are such unique places where you have to be very much on top of everything”, says Vanessa Llopart from the experience she has of working at the Cap Roig festival, which is held in the gardens of the same name in Calella de Palafrugell.
The village area will be open every concert day from 8 pm to 1 am on both sides of the garden entrance. The installation of the relaxation area has represented another challenge for the organizers, since they have to collect the furniture every day (they do this while the concert is taking place) to free up the space in the morning, when the park it recovers the public function to be filled with the regulars of the space, children, walkers and runners.
It is not until the afternoon that the area recovers its gastronomic function and is reattached to the rest of the installations, marquees and stages, which will remain fixed throughout the festival, as will the amphitheater, the only enclosed space in the permanently public
And, even if there is no decoration, there will be no lack of visual appeal from the performing arts of the Pablo Méndez company, which will be offering their shows from the first day: “things will be happening constantly, from the moment you enter until the moment you leave”.
