What went down at Sónar Festival
More than 105,000 attendees at the global, intercultural, feminine and queer three-day event in Barcelona
July 22nd, 2019
Dali Geralle
Sónar 2019 hosted more than 80 world firsts, and one-off experiences among 140 performances by more than 300 artists from 36 countries - for the first time taking in artists from five continents - and whose varied discourses place special emphasis on the global, intercultural, feminine, queer and radical. The festival brought together 46,000 people at Sónar by Day and 59,000 in Sónar by Night. The distribution of national and international audiences is 52% and 48% respectively.
After more than 26 years of existence, Sónar 2019 reconfirms itself as a great celebration of the music of the future, starring a wide array of global and emerging stars: from Bad Bunny to Stormzy, from Arca to Catnapp, from Lyzza to Disclosure, from Underworld to Paul Kalkbrenner, from Four Tet to Floating Points, from Cecilio G to Skepta, from Bad Gyal to K Á R Y Y N, from Octavian to Lorenzo Senni.
This year's commitment to radical discourses and artists working on the margins has patently led by women and with new currents in Latin and urban music emerging as a defining trend. At the centre of this is Bad Bunny, while Sónar 2019 has also featured strong proposals from Dengue Dengue Dengue or Dellafuente. Also standing out have been new African sounds, personified in artists such as Slikback, Dj Lag, Faka or Sho Majodzi.
The next edition of the festival returns to its usual dates and will be held in Barcelona on 18, 19 and 20 June 2020. This Monday 22 July at 17:00h the first full festival tickets to Sónar 2020 will go on sale at the special price of 115€.