A meeting point, a respite, a space to show the best and most active side of Barcelona to the Mobile World Congress (MWC) attendees. Beat Barcelona returns for the third consecutive year to the event with more space (1,600 m2) and a better location, in the gardens of Hall 8, at the entrance to the 4YFN. Culture, mainly in the form of music, and gastronomy will accompany the more reflective edition of the Beat with a new space, the agora, where conferences and talks will take place to explain what is happening in the city.
The first Beat Barcelona promoted by the City Council, at MWC22, served as a testing ground to measure the potential of a low-pressure recreational and networking space in the middle of the gigantic technological event (although that edition dragged the burden of the pandemic). It was clearly committed to music with a prolific alliance with the city’s festivals, Sónar, Cruïlla and Mira d’art digital. The bet was consolidated last year, when gastronomy gained weight. In this edition, Beat Barcelona makes another leap.
A new space is added to the recreational offer, the Ágora, “where we want to explain in person the projects and bets of the city, regarding research centers and startups or about how we apply technology in the care for the elderly and disabled; we will give the space a more reflective tone”, explains the manager of Economic Promotion of Barcelona City Council, Miquel Rodríguez.
With capacity for around forty people, the Àgora will offer a continuous program designed by the City Council and MWCapital. Among the proposals, that of Barcelona Capital del Chip, in which Mateo Valero (Barcelona Supercomputing Center), a manager of InnoFAB or Andreu Vilamitjana (Cisco) will take part. In the gastronomic field, there will be some stars, such as Oriol Castro from Disfrutar or Paolo Casagrande from the Lasarte restaurant. The Àgora will also host the America’s Cup and its involvement with technological innovation with Roger Frigola (engineer of the Emirates Team New Zealand) or Jaume Triay (engineer of the Swiss Alinghi Red Bull team).
Beyond this more formal conference space, the presence of music will be permanent with two different proposals, that of the Associació de Sales de Concerts de Catalunya-Barcelona, ??which will program from ten in the morning until five in the afternoon; and that of Barcelona Music Lab, which will be in charge of the musical menu from 5 p.m. until the Beat closes at 8 p.m. “The ultimate goal is for this space to be the meeting point, the place where things are always happening and where people can be comfortable and relax,” adds Rodríguez. Some totems will serve to show ongoing projects of the city and other assets.
Throughout the day there will also be culinary demonstrations to highlight the gastronomic culture of proximity and quality. This space will be integrated with the Damm bars, one with cold products and another with hot products. The space also incorporates a virtual reality experience that provides, through state-of-the-art glasses, a dizzying journey through the city that will begin at the top of the Collserola tower and transport the user to shop at the Sant Antoni market or to take a tour around the port and virtually follow your way through the places that interest you most in a city that is always in motion.
