48 hours after the clock strikes the time initially scheduled for the start of the Reggaeton Beach Festival, the public, employees and artists are still not very clear about what is going to happen. On the one hand, the City Council of the capital decreed its suspension yesterday, alleging that it will not be held because in the Iberdrola Music space, which is how the controversial Mad Cool venue has been baptized, “the security conditions or adequate evacuation are not guaranteed for an event of these characteristics”. However, its organizer rejects any cancellation and ensures that the music will play this weekend. All this while attempts to sell the purchased season tickets accumulate at the last minute.
In a statement, the promoter of the festival maintains that “all the measures required by the authorities in relation to the assembly of said event” have been adopted and all the corrections requested in the Mobility plan have been presented in a timely manner, as well as “all the considerations requested in the security and mobility meetings held with the city council and security forces”, without obtaining any unfavorable report.
As reported by the City Council, the suspension of the festival would be adopted after the organizer presented this Wednesday “an incomplete mobility plan”, in addition to the fact that the Madrid City Council Fire Department, which previously supervised the event, “has issued an unfavorable report”. Nor do they have authorization to exceed the maximum decibels established in the Noise ordinance.
However, the organizer assures that “it has not received any formal notification from the City Council, so at this time the call for the celebration of the most important reggaeton festival in Spain in Madrid for this weekend is maintained.”
“The promoter of the festival sees the need to clarify its commitment to quality and, at the same time, express its willingness to guarantee the appropriate technical and logistical conditions and measures for the correct development of the festival in a venue that has all the permits and all the authorizations and whose contracting has been considered as the most favorable option to develop this festival in the city,” it states in the statement.
In relation to the foregoing, it points out that it cannot assume any of the problems that the organization of the festivals that have been held at the Iberdrola Music venue in recent weeks may have had, taking into account that “RBF has nothing to do with the staging of the shows that have taken place at this venue, nor because of the event’s capacity (being much smaller), or schedules (which take place during daytime), or the type of audience with the aforementioned events.”
“Each one of these events organizes its own devices, so it is difficult to have an impact on the casuistry of other events that have been held in this venue, on the viability of the organization of the RBF,” he stresses.
The organization assures that it wants to guarantee “its commitment to reinforce any measure of the security or mobility device that is considered appropriate to make the development of the musical event more comfortable and effective.”
For this reason, it considers it necessary to demand “the clarity and transparency of administrative actions for the sake of the legal security of companies that wish to carry out their activity in the city of Madrid and that cannot be harmed by problems unrelated to the RBF that have nothing to do with the history of organizing a festival with more than 17 editions throughout the country, without any type of incidence”.
Finally, he stresses that, before making any irreversible decision, one must think “of the 38,000 people who have preferred to go to the capital of Spain to enjoy this festival that takes place in 10 other cities in Spain without any problem and who could now see their expectations disappointed”.
For this reason, the organizer considers it necessary to request “the support of the public administration for the solution of any contingency that may need to be resolved.”
