The Spanish festivals are in crisis for Israel. Meanwhile, Spring Sound has included bombings in Gaza in its poster

We had not had such a moved season of festivals for years. With the vast majority of the great musical events of summer marked by controversy Related to the KKR Investment Fund, the Spring Soundwhich is celebrated this week in Barcelona, ​​has decided to position itself with an installation halfway between political exhibitionism and the commercial hook. That is pure spring Sound, too.

The tunnel. Spring Sound has installed in the PARC of the Fòrum A 15 -meter tunnel that replicates the sounds of the bombings in Gaza. The name of the installation is ‘Unsilence Gaza’, it is the work of the Palestinian sound engineer Oussama Rima and has been done in collaboration with the NGOs Casa Nostra, Casa Vostra and Novact. These have stated that “in spring sounds the sound is emotion, connection, pleasure. But sound can also be the opposite: it can become a weapon.” To this have added a chilling fact: bombings can reach 170 decibels, “much more than the human body can bear.” But … how much of genuine commitment and how much for winking for the gallery in this installation?

The problem with KKR. KKR is an American investment fund, one of the world’s largest private capital companies, and whose most criticized activities There are real estate investments in Palestinian territories occupied by Israel, such as Jerusalem Este, Gaza and the West Bank. In 2024, the Fund acquired Supersruct Entertainment, a company that organizes some eighty festivals worldwide and that in Spain is behind events such as Sónar, Arenal Sound, Viña Rock, FIB or Monegros.

The reaction of the groups. The response was not long in coming from numerous groups, which They canceled their participation In many of the festivals, and in some cases they launched communications clarifying their exact relationship with KKR. Seventy bandsfor example, they demanded that Sónar a more compromised positioning. Voices have emerged that They ask for the boycott from the festivalsand some like Sónar himself have lost poster heads as ark. At the same time, others Artists like Kase.O either Angelus Apatrida They have decided to keep their commitments to the festivals, which has generated controversy and discomfort with some sectors of their fans.

More than festivals. Spring Sound does not have those ties with the KKR, which allows him to adopt a more combative position with respect to Gaza. But he does it in the PS style: for a few years, the festival is giving up the Transformation of Spanish festivals into more than encounters to listen to music. In many of them, the poster becomes something completely secondarybelow socialization: it started years ago with the transformation of the Benicàssim festival at the unavoidable point of meeting of the indie girl Before British invasionand Spring Sound partly collects his witness.

And with Noria. Perhaps the spring element that shows the most this option is the Noria that was installed in 2013. Since then they have worked in that direction by approaching the festival more to an leisure center than something else: Food Trucks and gastronomy positions, workshops and activities (many of them oriented to children), Conferencesmultidisciplinary exhibitions, handicraft, fashion and merchandising. An authentic brand and advertising exhibitor, which is the clear current orientation of spring, which in a sense questions its political meaning.

It is not Kkr, but. Spring Sound has dodged the summer controversy that has affected practically all its competitors, but it cannot be said that she does not have her own economic commitments. In fact, after its financing There is the American Investment Fund The Yucaipa Companiesled by businessman Ronald Burkle. In that sense the spring Sound is matched with the rest of the festivals: It is a more turned event into a financial asset for foreign billionaires with the excuse of culture. And that it is a business they have never hidden it, as their progressive name changes demonstrate to Estrella Damm Spring Sound or San Miguel Primavera Sound as they were dancing their main sponsors.

Ethics of income. Spring Sound financing has always generated innumerable ethical conflicts, as detailed This article by El Salto: Advertising of companies such as SEAT either Spotify while the claim of labor rights is raised; accusations of Purplewashing and Pinkwashing; Propaganda of brands of dubious ethics, for example linked to NFTS … and, in general, marketing of culture, which is always problematic. It spoke in depth by cross in A series of three controversial articles about the birth and evolution of the festival, and that made clear its abundant contradictions.

It does not leave Barcelona. The reason that spring sounds so consciously the flag of Catalanity (and with it, of a certain political activism) is precisely that He has not managed to leave Catalonia. The international spring expansion Sound has been a failure: it closed All its Latin American editions In 2024 after the fiasco that supposed The 2024 edition in Madrid. Actually, the latter was the result of a tense Pulse with the Barcelona City Council where interests much more substantial than music were at stake. A series of sticks for the Financial of the Festival, which retains only the first of its first international expansions, Porto, Out of Barcelona.

Intermediate point. Spring Sound is a first -order tourist attraction for Barcelona (left 272 million euros in the city in 2024according to a study by the MKTG Spain consultant). Thus, he plays (despite those nonsense with Madrid that They did not set For reasons that have nothing to do with their catalanity) not to lose their purely Catalan identity, with actions of the foundation linked to local training (many of their courses have joined the autonomy study programs). And within that identity is the claim in favor of Gaza, which maintain constant and explicit in aspects such as the programming of Radio Primavera Sound, where they do not have fear of positioning yourself.

Business is Business. Spring Sound is a business, and that is why you have to take any type of positioning with tweezers: remember the festival proposals as The New Normal and his commitment to parity and diversity in the poster, but that did not stop partially hollow and prefabricated. You just have to review the Declarations of one of the festival spokesmenMarta Pallarès, with respect to Gaza: the criticism of the genocide “will be at the hands of what each artist decides.” A lukewarm commitment (it is one of the few festivals that have not released a statement on Gaza, not even to keep their backs) that raises another interpretation for this year’s installation: another Stunt more advertising.

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