Barcelona’s Festa Major or big annual festival is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. The first La Mercè planned as a communal festival for the entire city was held in 1871. This year’s celebrations recall that event and reclaim some of the festival’s historical spaces.

Most of the activities will require advance booking and have limited places. Tickets for the traditional events will be available as of 16 September from the La Mercè website. There will be a maximum limit of three tickets for each traditional-event booking.

The Opening Ceremony

The festivities will kick off on Thursday, 23 September, with the opening speech delivered by Custodia Moreno (7 pm at the City Hall’s Saló de Cent) and with the return of the Opening Ceremony (7.45 pm at Plaça de Sant Jaume), which will be paying homage to Jordi Fàbregas, one of the creators of the Opening Ceremony and the director of the Ministrils del Camí Ral up to his death. The highlight of the homage will be the performance of the new melody composed by Marçal Ramon and entitled ‘Amunt i crits’, in memory of Jordi. The Ministrils del Camí Ral will be conducted by Eduard Casals, the composer of the Mulassa [giant mule] dance.

The day of the La Mercè, 150 years in Passeig de Gràcia

The following day, the saint’s day of the Mare de Déu de la Mercè, will see part of the festival’s traditional structure reclaimed. Passeig de Gràcia that day will be meeting up with the La Mercè, as an iconic historical site of the festival, and decked out with posters covering the last 150 years. It will be playing host, what is more, to Barcelona’s biggest display of popular culture ever held in the city, with a hundred giants, some fifty beasts, various stick dances, every human-tower group, acrobatic human-tower groups and other popular-culture associations. 11 am to 2 pm: the five sections between C/ Rosselló and C/ Consell de Cent will be packed with giants and beasts on display, giving ceremonial performances from time to time. There will be activities going on along the Consell de Cent a Diputació section. 11 am to 11.30 am: there will be a Galelaja Trabucaire [gun salute by period-costume, blunderbuss-wielding groups]; 12 noon: joint formations from all the human-tower groups and 1 pm: there will be an acrobatic human-tower display. Access to the morning activities will be free, provided the health measures and capacities are respected.

During the afternoon visitors to the passage, with prior booking, will see it become the setting for the La Mercè ‘150 Mercès’ Procession, resuming thematic blocks and with most of Barcelona’s giant figures, Communal Retinue, guest beasts and giants, music and animation groups taking part. The music procession will set off at 5 pm from C/ Rosselló and go down to C/ Diputació. Evening visitors, with prior booking too, will see 130 groups of devils, beasts, children devils and drummers filling the entire passage with a fire display from 8 pm to 10 pm). 

You can check out this page for further information on the events along Passeig de Gràcia.

Other activities on 24

There will also be a Display of traditional Catalan dancing (from 11.30 am to 1 pm) on the day of La Mercè itself, at Parc de la Ciutadella with the Vila de Gràcia, Joventut Nostra and Sant Jordi traditional Catalan dance groups, accompanied by the Cobla Sabadell, a traditional Catalan music ensemble. That park will also be playing host to the NUeS de l’Esbart Maragall show (1.15 pm) and a sardana rendition given by the Cobla Marinada (17.30 h).

Plaça Reial will be holding a concert entitled‘From Mozart to Broadway’ given by the Orfeó Atlàntida Youth Choir (6.30 pm) and a ’10+1 anniversary’ concert from the Barcelona Rainbow Singers (8 pm), organised by the Catalan Federation of Choral Associations. 9 pm: there will be a concert from the Cobla Sant Jordi – Ciutat de Barcelona in the La Mercè Basilica. All these activities require prior booking from the La Mercè website.

Saturday, 25

The weekend of 25 and 26 September will see most of the traditional events shift to Parc de la Ciutadella. Saturday: there will be a Gathering or Stick Dancers at 11 am and a Display of traditional Catalan dancing from the Gaudí, Català de Dansaires and Ballets de Catalunya groups, at 12 noon, accompanied by the Cobla Sant Jordi – Ciutat de Barcelona traditional Catalan music group.

Saturday afternoon: the final Display of traditional Catalan dancing from the Sant Martí and Ciutat Comtal groups will start at 5 pm. There will be a new opportunity to see the NUeS de l’Esbart Maragall show at 6 pm while the Clavé Choir’s 70th concert at the La Mercè ‘Clavé Rock!’ will be taking place at 8 pm.

Sunday, 26

Parc de la Ciutadella will once again be the centre of traditional events on Sunday. it will be playing host to the 71st La Mercè sardana dance group sports competition from 11 am to 2 pm, on the Cascada stage and the MercèDansa from 11 am to 1 pm on the Til·lers stage, which will resume from 4.30 pm to 6 pm. This year’s MercèDansa will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Galop de la Mercè and inviting dances from the metropolitan area (Vallès, Barcelonès and Baix Llobregat). Finally, there will be a sardana concert will the Lluïsos Cobla at 6.30 pm.

As in previous years, the Festa Major will conclude with a Piromusical [musical fireworks display], which will be launched from four different points in the city, whose locations will remain secret. The event will be commemorating the public festival’s 150th anniversary.

Popular culture displays

There will be a return, what is more, of festival imagery displays, as in previous years. The first will be the fire dragons and beasts, which can be visited at the Born Centre de Cultura i Memòria as from Tuesday, 7 and until Sunday, 26. 11 September will seeing the opening of the exhibition on the Communal Procession at the City Hall (up to Sunday, 26) and on Monday, 13 September there will be a Display of giants at the Manning Courtyard in the Casa de la Caritat, which will continue until 23.

To commemorate the anniversary, La Casa dels Entremesos will be holding a large-format exhibition with most of the festival’s posters. The exhibition is entitled ‘Anunciant la Mercè. Els cartells de la Festa Major de Barcelona 1951-2021’ [Announcing the La Mercè: Posters from Barcelona’s Festa Major, 1951-2021], in collaboration with numerous artists who have left their mark on the La Mercè’s posters. It can be visited from 12 September to 26 November (except on Saturday, 25 September).

It is in the framework of this commemoration that the Open University of Catalonia and the Barcelona Institute of Culture have joined forces to conduct a joint study on the content of the festival’s opening speeches over the last 25 years. The relationship was established under the framework of the FestSpace European research project.