This year’s Festa Major de Gràcia will be a safe event, approved by Civil Protection and the Barcelona Public Health Agency. The celebrations will keep numbers lower and centre on local people in the Vila de Gràcia neighbourhood, adapting to the exceptional situation in the city.

The opening speech is programmed for 14 August and will be given by three women from the healthcare sector:

✔ Xènia Sist, nurse, from the nursing management department at the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, and care assistant at the Sant Pau – Guinardó field hospital.
✔ Maria Teresa Fabregat, nurse, from the Vila de Gràcia – Cibeles Primary Healthcare Centre (CAP).
✔ Elvira Bisbe, anaesthetist, from the Hospital de l’Esperança, and vice chair of the Barcelona Doctors’ Association.

Activities with limited capacity and appointments

Streets will be organising small-format activities for local residents to avoid build-ups of people in small spaces, with all the preventive measures recommended by the health authorities.

The organisers and the District Office are also working on some locations where activities for local people will be held using an appointment system, with various activities for all types of public. All the activities require people to respect physical distances and comply with other protection measures. Capacity will also be specifically controlled, with spaces disinfected and special signage outlining all the preventive measures for the sake of people’s health.

All festival activities will end at 11 pm at the latest this year, with no dances or concerts at nights or in the early hours.

Symbolic decoration of streets and squares

Street decorations are one of the main characteristics of Gràcia’s festival, with projects created by local people for much of the year. However, due to the lockdown, the street commissions have been unable to work on them this year and as a result there will only be some symbolic street decorations. Because of this, the competition for the best decorations will not be held.

In order to ensure there is space for people to circulate and to avoid build-ups of people, the decorations will be smaller and positioned above the streets, with no entrances or exit gates or decorations on the ground. Capacity will be controlled to avoid clusters of people at these points.

The organisers are encouraging people to decorate balconies, windows, doorways and shop windows to keep this visible Gràcia traditional alive.

To avoid journeys from other points of the city and avoid crowding in the neighbourhood’s streets, all the decorations will be able to be viewed with the festival app, offering 360-degree routes.

Digital format

More resources have been devoted to helping the festival reach people in digital format this year, avoiding unnecessary journeys. To this end, there will be a specific digital programme for the Festa Major de Gràcia 2020.

Work is also being done on specific content such as documentary screenings, capsules with historical content about the festival and information capsules with its protagonists.