La Mercè 2023, Barcelona's festa major or annual city street festival is about to kick off, filling city streets, squares and venues from Friday September 22nd to Monday 25th with all kinds of activities. Here's our guide to all the details so you don't miss anything: La Mercè 2023 programme and app, this year's poster, the traditional Catalan cultural events, the concerts in the BAM 2023 and La Mercè music series, the annual Piromusical and its magnificent fireworks, and more...
Mercè 2023 programme
The official Mercè 2023 programme is now available in PDF (in Catalan). It includes all the activities such as concerts, cultural events, the Piromusical, and so on... the city council also provides most of the festival information in English, starting at this homepage. You can also download the official Mercè app from Google Play or the Apple Store.
Mercè 2023 poster
The annual poster for the La Mercè festivities this year is the work of Chamo San, a Barcelona illustrator and artist, and is full of references to previous years' posters. It takes the form of a human castle, with the enxaneta, the child who climbs the highest, visible at the top. Many cultural figures of the city can also be identified in the work.
If you like the poster, you can pick up a copy (while stocks last) both at Sala Ciutat (Carrer Ciutat, 2) and at Palau de la Virreina (the Rambla 99).
Proclamation speech 2023
The "Pregó" or proclamation speech for La Mercè 2023 is being given by the writer Najat el Hachmi (born in Beni Sidel, Morocco, 1979), winner of the City of Barcelona Prize in 2015. Her first book was Jo també sóc catalana (I too am Catalan, 2004) and with roots as deep in Catalonia as she has in Morocco, she writes both fiction and essays on themes like identity, migration, racism and feminism. The proclamation speech marks the opening of the festival, and is held at 7pm on Friday 22nd September, at the Saló de Cent, in the Barcelona city hall.
The venues
Traditionally, most of the activity for La Mercè used to be concentrated in the most central neighbourhoods, but in recent years there's been an emphasis on spreading the events across the city more and more. So while there's still a whole lot going on in Ciutat Vella - from the Moll de la Fusta and Plaça de la Mercè to Plaça Sant Jaume and the Avinguda de la Catedral - there's also a whole series of other focuses around town: the beaches of Barceloneta and Bogatell; the locations round Montjuïc (Avinguda Maria Cristina; Castell de Montjuïc, Teatre Grec and more); Parc Joan Miro and Parc de l'Estació del Nord in the Eixample; uptown Carrer Menéndez and Pelayo; and out towards Sant Andreu, Horta, and Nou Barris, the gardens of Dr Pla and Armengol, the Plaça Major de Nou Barris, and more. The full list of venues in English is here.
Guest city: Kyiv
Every year, La Mercè invites the participation of a guest city and this year it's the capital of Ukraine. You'll be able to see discover dances from this Eastern European country, both traditional and modern, see the Cabaret de Circ, with Ukranian artists taking part, on 23-25 September at Montjuïc Castle. Plus Ukrainian music from folk to electronic on the festival programme, and finally, Kyiv will leave its mark on one of the most firmly rooted traditions in the Catalan cultural heritage, by presenting Barcelona with two giants that represent their princely saints of Olga and Volodymyr.
The concerts
La Mercè fills squares and venues all over Barcelona with free concerts. There are the Barcelona Acció Musical (BAM) concerts - featuring new and youthful sounds of all flavours from rock to electronic - complemented by culturally diverse sounds and traditional genres you can find in the Mercè Música gigs and the Cultura Viva section - music for all tastes and from all over the world. The proposals are spread over 16 spaces with settings ranging from the central Rambla del Raval, the beach of Platja del Bogatell, and the uptown Menéndez and Pelayo in Les Corts district, among others.
🎶 Concerts for La Mercè 2023 in Barcelona: hours, locations and all details (in Catalan)
Pyromusical 2023: Sonar comes to the party of a Barcelona classic
You can't miss the Pyromusical, with its magnificent fireworks set to music, as the grand finale of the Mercè 2023 festivities. The show will take place on Monday, September 25th, 2023, the last day of the celebrations, around 10pm and will last for about 25 minutes. The fireworks will be launched from Montjuïc and can be watched live from nearby Avenida Reina Maria Cristina. This year the Sónar festival has turned 30, and so this advanced music festival is going to take charge of the Pyromusical sounds to close La Mercè.
As with previous editions of La Mercè, this year there will be other pyrotechnic shows over the previous days, at the Espigó del Gas, near Barceloneta beach.
- Friday, September 22nd at 10pm: XXIV International Fireworks Festival (Lithuania)
- Saturday, September 23rd at 10pm: XXIV International Fireworks Festival (Oman)
- Sunday, September 24th at 10pm: Drone Show from Floc Drone Art
Catalan popular culture: from 'gegants' to the 'correfoc'
The grand procession, the Cavalcada de la Mercè, takes place on Sunday, September 24th, 2023. The parade starts at 6pm on Carrer Pelai (corner with Gravina) and the route goes to Plaça Catalunya, then down the Rambla and into Carrer Ferran, to Plaça Sant Jaume. The central axis of the Cavalcade are the iconic gegants or giants. These, for approximately 2 hours, tour and dance through the emblematic streets and squares of the centre of Barcelona, inviting any spectator to participate in the festive atmosphere.
But this is only one of many opportunities you will have to encounter Catalan popular culture in the streets of central Barcelona: from Friday to Monday there are exhibitions, parades, Sardana dances - check out times and venues in English here - and of course, the Correfoc or Fire run, on Saturday afternoon (for kids) and evening (for grown-ups) in Passeig de Gràcia. And then there are the castellers...
Castellers de la Mercè 2023
As in every year, the Mercè 2022 contests in the dramatic Catalan sport of human castle building take place over 2 days in Plaça Sant Jaume:
- Saturday 23rd September at 12 noon: Castellers day in Plaça Sant Jaume with invited groups including Castellers de Barcelona, Minyons de Terrassa and Joves Xiquets de Valls.
- Sunday 24th September at 1pm: Eight groups from the city compete in Plaça de Sant Jaume.
