On the afternoon of Sunday, August 16, the American legend Lee Fields gathered 300 soul lovers at 16 Toneladas Rock Club, an enclave located in the Tendetes neighborhood, in Valencia.. In a ghost town for indoor summer concerts, the venue's owners interrupted their vacation and raised the blinds to offer the tour promoter a space suitable for the North Carolina singer's dates..
Two days before, the Medusa festival, in Cullera, closed its edition with 300,000 attendees. Somewhat later, the Rototom Festival began in Benicàssim, which would end a week later with figures of 220,000 spectators.. Beyond the figures, inflated year after year by macro festivals, which count the buyer of a three-day pass as one and three to increase the amount of public subsidies, the reality of the native music industry shows that the music business last decade is a trench fight for the halls of the Valencian territory.
On October 14, the live performances of Love to Rock put the final point in the Valencian Community to a festival season opened on April 6 by the SanSan Festival. Now that the seasonal and environmental summers travel through different paths, the macro-festival season does adjust to climate change by taking advantage of this seven-month period with high temperatures.. The turbocapitalism of smart bracelet and plastic cup knows the formula for adaptation to global warming. During the next six months, international and national tours and Valencian groups will stop, mostly, in venues that maintain a stable monthly schedule.. In December 2022, the Valencian Association of Live Music Venues (En-Viu!) received the Honor Award at the Carles Santos Awards for Valencian Music, organized by the Valencian Institute of Culture, dependent on the Department of Culture and Sport. An award for the resistance of the grassroots productive fabric.
Fran Bordonado is president of EnViu! and directs the Euterpe room, located in San Juan de Alicante. The entity brings together twenty venues in Castellón, Valencia and Alicante where concerts are regularly scheduled throughout the year, ranging from spaces for eighty people, such as El Volander, to venues for 1,500 spectators, such as Repvblicca.. “We have noticed the recovery of the public after the atrocious pandemic break and the fear of closed theaters. We are approaching the numbers of 2019 and the attendees have returned to the natural space of the concerts. The regulations and legislation of the eighties on concert halls qualified us as musical entertainers, but not as cultural agents.. During the pandemic, with the rooms closed and more time for office work, we took the opportunity to promote negotiations with the administration and reverse this situation. We needed to be recognized as creators of culture, in the same way as theaters and auditoriums. The entertainment law was modified to include us as spaces with stable and quality programming, with the ability to professionally work on culture.”.
The vast majority of musical careers that achieve a certain popular recognition are cut in these intimate enclaves during their beginnings.. Rosalía performed before one hundred people in Las Naves del Grao in Valencia. Rozalén in front of fifty in Benimaclet's KafCafé. Mr Kilombo gathered twenty attendees at the Euterpe, and Izal two hundred in the Matisse del Cedro room.. The national anomaly is the divine work of Íñigo Quintero's entourage: only a few can invest tens of thousands of euros in turning a white gospel into viral meat for TikTok or Spotify, and baptize it a day later at the Wizink Center before 15,000 listeners. “Without concert halls the chain of the musical process is broken. An artist does not usually go from rehearsal spaces to festivals or large venues without stepping into the country's small and medium-sized venues.. The value chain is structured through the complexity of various capacities through which the musical careers of the groups pass.. Programmers are also talent prescribers,” says Bordonado..
The shock plan of the Generalitat Valenciana to support culture during the pandemic allowed the survival of a good part of these venues. Already in 2017 they were included as beneficiaries of Musical Promotion subsidies. “We advocate that this remain active, regardless of the political position of the Consell, since it is sectoral aid and we are essential for the economic growth of the territory,” says the businessman, “we need that annual support to continue betting on new musical talent, both Valencian and national. We are not foreign investment funds or large companies, but rather small entrepreneurs and self-employed people who believe in the work done.. “We fight to passionately support music and our scene.”.
More than 100 days after the formation of the new government of the Generalitat, after a non-working August and a September of searching for new positions in the Department of Culture of Vice President Vicente Barrera, changes in approach and staff dismissals are coming at the Institut Valencià of Culture. “Whenever a major political change occurs, a certain uncertainty appears, because we have deadlines to meet and lines of work, like all professional sectors of the Valencian economy.. Last week we had a sectoral meeting of music, theaters, performers, writers and others, with Paula Añó and Sergio Arlandis – Autonomous Secretary of Culture and General Director of Culture of the Generalitat Valenciana – where they informed us of their willingness to continue contact with everyone the interlocutors of the professional associations, who are open to listening to proposals and working together”, concludes the president of the Valencian Association of Live Music Venues.