The success of the celebration of the America’s Cup will be measured by the degree of citizen involvement in the event and by Barcelona’s ability to take advantage of it and project itself to the world, as it has done so many other times . For this reason, beyond the unquestionable repercussion in the sporting field, the Fundació Barcelona Capital Nàutica, with the City Council at the helm, is preparing an agenda of activities to publicize the America’s Cup among Barcelona residents and a ceremony inaugural to witness one of the international events that will mark this year’s agenda. The gala will be a show with light, drones and pyrotechnics and where music will play a leading role, with names like Sílvia Pérez Cruz and Bad Gyal.
The opening ceremony, scheduled for October 10, will mark the turning point of the celebration of the America’s Cup, which will actually have started earlier, at the end of August, with the Challenger Selection Series (in which the five challenger teams will compete and the winner will face the current defenders of the trophy, Emirates Team New Zealand). After the inaugural gala, the most intense days will come: the finals of the Women’s and Youth America’s Cups and the long-awaited America’s Cup Match will be contested.
Sea, wind and sailing, the three essential elements of what is considered the Formula 1 of the sea, will also be the axes of the show that is being prepared. The Barcelona company Focus, whose group manages the Romea, the Condal, the Goya and the Villarroel theaters, among others, heads the temporary union of companies (UTE) in charge of organizing the gala and which also includes the Lavinia Group (specialized in the audiovisual industry), the Igor creative studio (expert in the creation of music and video) and the company Flock Drone Art, which already made the last pyromusical of Mercè 2023.
For the time being, the gala is conceived as a single piece of music that will be the guiding thread of the entire show. During the process of creating the ceremony, on which work began months ago, the possibility of hiring a star of international projection was studied to give the event maximum global relevance. In the contract for the ceremony, to which La Vanguardia has had access, the musical bet that is being considered and is being negotiated would be in charge of two of the Catalan artists with the most impact on an international scale: Sílvia Pérez Cruz and Bad Gyal. With the contrast of their two styles, the aim is to magnify the show’s message and reach a more transversal audience. As the colophon of the show, an epic finale that will pivot on the central structure of the gala and which is expected to be commissioned by the composer and pianist Albert Guinovart.
Beyond the artistic story, it is the location of the ceremony that adds spectacularity to the proposal. The stage will be erected on the Mar Bella breakwater and will be oriented towards Bogatell beach, from where spectators will have the best view of the gala. The assembly is designed in such a way that it will appear to float on water, an element that has been considered as the protagonist from the very beginning.
In fact, in the initial design phase of the ceremony, several possibilities were studied: some in scenarios located on land and another option, more ambitious but more linked to the essence of the America’s Cup: at sea, where during those days the regattas will be contested. After ruling out possible locations in different spaces – it was also considered to hold the ceremony inside the mouth -, finally and with the approval of Civil Protection, the Mar Bella breakwater, next to the Nautical Base, was chosen as suitable space
The stage provided for in the Barcelona Capital Nàutica AC24 contract is 110 by 55 meters, with a completely ephemeral structure that will change its appearance with spectacular lights, another essential element of the gala. The challenge for the organizers is to achieve, in such an unusual setting for this type of event, a show with maximum visual impact. For this reason, a large technical deployment is planned to ensure that both the image and the sound are perfectly perceived from the Bogatell beach, in this main square, where the public will be able to access freely. The organizers estimate that around 30,000 people will be able to watch the ceremony live, despite the fact that, as in the America’s Cup itself, there will be a wide deployment to broadcast the event and also spread it through social networks.
The award price of the ceremony is 2 million euros, made through Barcelona Capital Nàutica AC24, the foundation that brings together in the board of trustees representatives of all the administrations involved in the celebration of the America’s Cup in Barcelona : in addition to the City Council, the Generalitat, the State, the Provincial Council of Barcelona, ??the Port Authority, the Official Chamber or the Consorci de Turisme de Barcelona.
The Foundation called a competition of ideas for the design of the opening ceremony of the America’s Cup, in which the proposal presented by Focus was selected as the winner. The tender for the contract was signed just over two weeks ago.
