Anyone been?
We fancied another festival but the 2 we fancied (Doune the Rabitt hole and Latitude) are on the same weekend as the one we have booked (Blue Dot).
So, GLW had a wizzard wheez of Primavera Barcelona (and maybe some Spanish lessons for her). But I’ve got work. But (2) the same thing is on in Madrid the next week.
Anyone any tips/advice/offers to run my courses for me so I can go to Barcelona?
Primavera Madrid
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Sadly, I’ve not been to Primavera. But I did enjoy the playlist they did of artists who were going to play last year.
Here’s this year’s.
I’ve not been to Primavera but I’ve been to Madrid often enough (Mrs F has family there, and I have a chum who worked at the university until recently).
Primavera is held at Ciudad de Rock, a purpose-built festival site near Arganda del Rey, about an hour from the centre of Madrid.
Looking at pictures of Ciudad de Rock reminds me of the site of the Phoenix Festival (held on an old airbase). I went in 1996, temperatures every day were above 30C, there was no shade, water supplies were variable, PortaLoos were like foul-smelling ovens, and it was tough going.
Hopefully not a problem on a purpose-built site, but it doesn’t look like there’s much shade at Ciudad de Rock, and Madrid gets much hotter than Stratford-upon-Avon.
My abiding memory of a June visit to Madrid is sitting on a park bench in the shade of a tree near the Prado museum, eating ice creams in an attempt to keep cool, then walking past a massive LED display which alternated between time and temperature, 14:00/42C.
“42 degrees – that’ll be why I’m hot, then.”
I was at the Barcelona Primavera this year and was disappointed by the organisation. At one point it was downright dangerous, as we got caught up in a crowd of people trying to follow the same path. I’m not exactly short, but even I was getting swept along. The whole event seemed hugely oversubscribed. I’d been once before, in 2009, and this was totally different.
At least the organisers admitted their mistakes (after numerous online complaints – mainly about the beer tent queues!) and the rest of the weekend was far better.