The saturation of the offer kills music festivals in Menorca
The difficulties in making large productions profitable have already led to the cancellation of two festivals in two years on the island, where only the most differentiated performing arts and classical proposals survive.
CiutadellaThe second week of August Menorca has welcomed a new large-format music festival, Ukalari Live. The managers of the theater of the same name in Ciutadella, Alberto Gómez and Miriam Torres, dare to program 10 days of concerts, from David Bustamante to The Tyets and the tribute This is Michael, in a venue set up at the Sporting Maonès football field which can hold 4,000 people. These days employ about thirty people and cause the indirect creation – they estimate – of 300 more jobs. A significant leap, but they say it is controlled, compared to what they are used to at the old Calós theater, now Ukalari, where in two years they have managed to regularly fill its 575 seats and have attracted nearly 25,000 spectators.
The raffles for double tickets through the media suggest, however, that a final push is needed for sales to balance the books. Something similar to what the Menorca Music Festival did in what was supposed to be, this August, its fifth edition and which was canceled just a week before it began. With artists like Víctor Manuel and Loquillo about to travel to the island.
Financing
The festival management has explained with total transparency through social networks that the real reason for the cancellation has been the “serious health problem that arose” on July 20, ten days before the start of the festival, suffered by “a fundamental investor and strategic partner” who was to finance it. This fact paralyzed the operations and the expected revenues, which has ultimately made it impossible for the concerts to take place.
“We deeply regret the harm, frustration, and inconvenience that this involuntary situation has caused,” say the organizers, who are still waiting to find a way to meet their commitments to artists and suppliers and, at the same time, refund the public for the tickets that had already been sold. The promoters apologize, highlighting the “complexity” of dealing with the logistics and the additional costs inherent to island status with “limited” support from public administration and private sponsors “in relation to other festivals on the Peninsula”.
The former Minister of Culture, Miquel Àngel Maria, points out that, already in the first contact in 2018, the organizers asked the insular council to grant them a nominative subsidy. “They came to do a ‘favor’ to the Menorcans and to set up a festival like those on the Peninsula, but they needed institutional support to balance the accounts,” he recalls. Despite the council's initial refusal, they requested its support again after covid and the request was forwarded to the Tourism Promotion. Thus, they began to program the festival without direct aid from the institution, but sí from the Mercadal City Council.
The lack of liquidity and economic viability has been present in the five editions of the festival. In fact, the organization accumulated a very significant debt with the General Society of Authors (SGAE) that even threatened the Administration that had supported it. “We really came to fear that the SGAE would demand subsidiary payment of the debt,” admits an important source within the City Council. Despite being a private event, the fact that it had municipal exemptions and bonuses and took place in a public space fueled the Administration's fear. “We weren't entirely sure,” he acknowledges. Finally, however, the SGAE accepted the fractional payment of the debt and, “although in extremis”, the City Council had already received the certification to give the green light to this year's edition.
But musicians and suppliers were also paid late. Love of Lesbian conditioned their performance last year to receiving a large part of their fee in advance, in order to avoid the problems that other participating bands had reported to them. Some local suppliers also contacted the City Council to alert them of the debt they were carrying and to ask for their collaboration.
The choice of Mercadal as the venue for the Menorca Music Festival had not been accidental. In addition to its strategic location in the center of the island, the organization benefited from the public cession of the space of the old barracks and the fact that this enclosure already has a specific protection plan. So it only had to adapt the capacities, although it was late in complying with the municipal technical conditions. “They had all the licenses, but everything was done at the last minute and loosely. So we kept imposing increasingly strict safety ratios,” points out the source. In the end, however, this fact was not the cause of the suspension.
In any case, it has had a longer life than the Lazareto Fest, which was canceled after only two editions on the island: the first, at the Llatzeret in the port of Maó and the second, at the castle of Sant Felip. The reduction in capacity in 2023, motivated by the change of location outside the emblematic islet that had hosted them the first summer, was one of the reasons that caused the event to lose viability. In fact, the organizers boasted of generating an economic return of almost one million euros in each edition. In the two years of the festival, they managed to gather nearly 20,000 spectators and the performances of Ara Malikian, Ana Torroja, Boney M, Anastacia, Ainhoa Arteta, and the Gipsy Kings.
Concert Offer
In this context and with such a saturation of concert offerings, what type of festival manages to survive in Menorca? Those promoted at a local level, like the Claustre concerts in Maó and Jazzbah in Ciutadella, and also more specific ones, driven by volunteer work and even with an international scope.
Beyond the Menorca Jazz festival, which already has 28 editions, and those organized by Joventuts Musicals – the Ciutadella one turns 54 years old – those that opt for greater differentiation manage to persist. This is the case of the Líthica association, which manages the old quarries of l'Hostal and has turned this venue, one of the most visited in Menorca, into the link for a summer Fosquets program with world music and equally eclectic proposals like Anna Ferrer and Sílvia Pérez Cruz.
The Pedra Viva performing arts festival has also found its audience, which this year has returned hand in hand with its patron Mariona Carulla and director Joan Taltavull, with a program that combines performances like Buika's and shows and performances like Acquasonic, in emblematic natural spots on the island, such as Cala Morell and La Mola.
“We’ve been doing it for 15 years, but each time with the feeling that it might be the last. Public subsidies arrive late, are always insufficient, and force us to seek private resources so as not to depend so much on the Administration,” says Taltavull. In fact, in their case, practically half of the 285,000 euros budget comes from the non-repayable contribution of the 90 individuals and 20 companies that support it. However, with the festival now consolidated, he believes that the most basic thing is “to build audience loyalty and perform out of vocation. If you set up a festival only thinking about making a profit and with a business vision, it will never pay off, much less so in Menorca.” So, in his case, “it is the support of people and companies who trust in it that keeps me going. It’s a real gift”.