IRISH ATTENDEES OF popular Barcelona music festival Primavera Sound have described communication and crowd management of Thursday’s setup during a status yellow weather warning as a “shit show”.

The festival is primarily held at the Parc del Fòrum grounds. Here, 75,000 people attend each day. As one of the largest festivals of its kind in Europe, it attracts large crowds from Ireland and the UK.

On Thursday, a major rain and wind warning threw the festival into disarray. Rain was heavy and in some cases was blown onto the stages during performances, attendees told The Journal.

A number of acts were cancelled due to the weather, but this was communicated to attendees only through Primavera’s Instagram account and not the many screens dotted around the grounds.

The grounds have no access to Wi-Fi and the signal is very poor, attendees said, meaning that many could not access the festival’s Instagram account to check for updates.

One Irish attendee, Clio, who went in a group of eight, told The Journal that the weather was not the main issue.

“We all knew it was going to rain, and we were prepared for the rain,” she said. “It was nothing worse than what you’d see at Electric Picnic.”

As the rain grew heavier, she and her friends decided to seek shelter under a food service area. “There were hundreds of people also doing the exact same thing, so it just became this crush. We couldn’t move for about an hour.”

At about 10pm, they decided to venture back out to the main stage, which had then been evacuated. “They had this sign up saying due to the weather, performances are temporarily suspended”, but there were no further explanations or guidance available.

After a while, someone in her group got signal and checked the Instagram, where they say that acts Mac Demarco and Alex G had been cancelled.

Half of the group decided to leave the grounds and head back to the hotel, while the other half stayed on. 

“It was really difficult to leave,” Clio said. “By the exits, it was just people shoulder-to-shoulder trying to get out, and then it became a bit of a stampede.

“I just kept thinking, if someone has a medical emergency, they’re going to get no help, which is part of the reason why we felt we had to leave.”

Dozens of people during the first day of Primavera Sound Barcelona yesterday - before the weather turned. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

One of the headliners, Doja Cat, was due to perform on Thursday night. When they group got back to their hotel, they saw she had posted that she would not be performing due to the weather – but the festival didn’t announce this.

Another big act, Massive Attack, were due to play but had the set delayed. Primavera announced that the group would be playing their set at 12.30am instead.

Clio told The Journal that she and her friends considered returning for the gig but decided against it, but that others had travelled back in.

“Then it came to 1am and they weren’t on,” she said. “Primavera were still showing advertisements on the screens, but they hadn’t said that Massive Attack weren’t performing.”

It was eventually posted on Instagram that the act had been cancelled and Clio managed to get onto her friends that were still at the grounds to tell them. “They said they hadn’t even announced it there,” she said.

Clio has attended the festival before, as well as many of her friends. “Like for half of our group, this is their fifth Primavera – and it’ll likely be their last.”

Gavan, on the other hand, had a “fantastic time”, although he said communication from the festival was dire.

He was slightly more cheerful than Clio over the phone as he only had a Thursday ticket, meaning he will get a full refund.

“I was just really excited to see Geese yesterday, and that was an amazing concert. So basically it’ll turn out that I got to see Geese for free, which isn’t too bad.”

He said that as the festival went on, the weather grew worse and attendees were reliant on the screens for information, with the only ones displaying a blanket message of performances being suspended down by the stages.

“The messages on there weren’t changing for one or two hours,” he said. “It was kind of just word of mouth, how things spread, so one person would check the Instagram and pass that on.

“It seemed as though you were dependent on your fellow festival attendees to figure out what was happening.” 

The bad weather was apparent days in advance, Gavan said, adding that he thinks the festival organisers should’ve made greater efforts to mitigate some of the impact.

It hasn’t put him off returning to the festival, but he said that he imagines some of yesterday’s attendees will not be back next year.

There have been massive complaints made by attendees to the festival organisers, who conceded that they would be refunding Thursday ticket holders. Primavera Sound said “at the time” there would be no partial refunds issued to those who held weekend tickets, despite the major disruption.

In a comment on its Instagram page, it said: “We understand that communication wasn’t always as fast or clear as it would have been desirable, and we’re sorry for the frustration this may have caused.”

It’s not the first controversy the festival has experienced. In 2022, it faced backlash due to extreme overcrowding, a ban on water bottles despite a heatwave and limited access to water fountains.

In 2022, attendees were forced to queue for over an hour at understaffed bars to buy water. There were also issues around security, crowd control, and safety at exits. 

Primavera Sound has been contacted for comment.