El Grec is over and, beyond the 88 cultural proposals that have drenched the city, the rain has also drenched a good number of those attending some of the events. In fact, on June 29, the opening show, The pulse, with the Australian acrobat troupe Gravity
Beyond the meteorological anecdote, the director of the festival, Cesc Casadesús, considered that he had been a Greek with “strong emotions”, words that summarize his feelings at the end of the 2023 edition. Together with Xavier Marcé, commissioner of Culture of the Barcelona City Council, assessed the operation of the festival.
El Grec has offered 88 shows, a number lower than in previous editions, because Casadesús considers that numbers over a hundred are not appropriate in a festival of this nature. Regarding Avinyó, one of the leading European festivals and with which El Grec collaborates, he recalled that they only present around 40 proposals. The festival closed the edition with 130,995 spectators and a 72% average occupancy. Despite this, the Montjuïc amphitheater, the flagship of the festival, has recorded an occupancy rate of 95%, with more than 30,000 attendees. Of the 88 proposals in the program, there were 23 sold-out shows. And the most used discounts were for the first time those under the age of 30, followed by the Library card, which until now was the most requested discount: “We’re doing something right”, said Casadesús, highlighting the made the young audience go to the festival.
Casadesús emphasized the choral proposals, which have been hybridized with theater and dance, and which have characterized the current edition, as well as the circus shows, which have reached 95%, “verging on full occupancy”. Also, the dance proposals have been placed in 93% of the occupation. On the contrary, international theater is the one that has had the most problems in attracting a majority audience, a normal fact according to the director of the festival.
It has been a festival of “strong emotions linked to the artistic proposals, to unique projects”, pointed out Casadesús, for whom shows such as Les traceurs, of the equilibrist who walked through the sky of Plaça Catalunya, or “the free proposals and relatives in Plaça Margarida Xirgu, as well as the involvement of organizations, factories and museums and the high participation of the public, mostly from the city, have made the Grec an even more popular festival”. The director of the festival highlighted precisely the “difficult balance between quality and popular proposals”, which he considers that this edition has indeed been achieved. The festival will assess whether the programming is maintained in unique spaces, given the “complexity of production presented by these locations”, although Casadesús recalled that they have achieved good occupancy figures.
The 2024 edition is the eighth and last one that Casadesús will direct, a record number of editions, and on this Marcé informed that a competition will be called in the autumn to select the new director, who will serve from 2025, but that before will collaborate with Casadesús in the relay.
