.barcelona at Bizbarcelona: connect your business with the city

The .barcelona domain was at Bizbarcelona on 23 and 24 October, the essential meeting point for all entrepreneurs, freelancers and companies looking to drive their business in Barcelona and on an international scale.

We were on the Barcelona Activa stand as one of the digitalisation and sustainability projects.

Bizbarcelona offered the .barcelona domain a unique platform for connecting with thousands of local professionals and businesses. The event was the ideal place for:

  • Introducing the .barcelona domain: this enables us to show the advantages and benefits of using a specific name linked to the city.
  • Offering personalised advice: our experts are ready to help resolve your doubts and help you choose the domain that suits your needs best.
  • Networking: Bizbarcelona is an excellent opportunity for establishing contact with companies, providers and potential clients.

Identify yourself with a .barcelona domain for just 5 euros

Held on 26 September, the European Day of Languages is a special occasion highlighting the continent’s linguistic wealth and the great cultural heritage it represents in Europe.

To mark the occasion, the .barcelona domain is joining the .cat and .gal domains for a campaign to nurture and promote geographical and cultural domains.

Your .barcelona domain for just 5 euros

You only have until 13 October to purchase your .barcelona domain for just 5 euros plus VAT.

Why choose a .barcelona domain?

·         Identity: A .barcelona domain reflects your link with the city.

·         Visibility: It increases your visibility in search engines and attracts a local and international audience with an interest in Barcelona.

·         Professionalism: A personalised domain conveys seriousness and professionalism.

·         Community: You will form part of a community of .barcelona domains and be able to proudly show that your project is different, modern, cosmopolitan and entrepreneurial.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity!Go to https://www.domini.barcelona/registra/ and register your .barcelona domain. It’s the moment to show the pride you take in the city of Barcelona.

From Barcelona to London: shared experiences

The team from the .barcelona domain attended the annual meeting by the GeoTLD Group, held in London on 5 and 6 September and bringing together geographical domains (GeoTLD) and city domains to share the challenges and opportunities for our sector, the evolution of the market and new trends and challenges.

City domains attending this year’s meeting included .paris, .berlin, .amsterdam, .wien and .cologne.

The meeting puts Barcelona’s digital future and the new European regulations in the spotlight

The meeting provided a good chance to analyse the future perspectives of domains and explore new opportunities for collaboration. In this context, .barcelona highlighted how it is a domain which is open to citizens and committed to the promotion of Barcelona in the digital sphere and its contribution towards a more open and diverse internet.

The European security regulations (NIS2), which come into force in the next few months, provided another of the main topics for the meeting. The regulations are aimed at ensuring a more secure European digital environment, with more guarantees, regulations and certifications, meaning challenges in management and new dynamics in operating domains.

Towards a new round of domains

The meeting also offered a unique opportunity for us to get together again with those in charge of the ICANN, who were able to share the new round of domains due to be launched in 2026. Developed over the last ten years by the ICANN, the new round of domains will offer a great opportunity to request new domain extensions representing communities, other cities, brands and general names.

.london and .barcelona share experiences and learning

Another key moment was the bilateral meeting we held with London & Partners, the City of London agency tasked with managing the .london domain, the host for this year’s meeting. The session gave us an insight into the experiences the .london domain has had to go through since it was created, and to share initiatives in the field of marketing and promotion for both domains.

Working together for a more secure digital future

The presence of the .barcelona domain at the annual GeoTLDmeeting  reaffirms our commitment to keep working with other geoTLDs to build a more secure and prosperous digital future, and at the same time to allow the .barcelona domain to keep abreast of the latest trends in the sector, establish contacts with other similar organisations and work together.

The Barcelona Festival is merce.barcelona

Our main festival takes place this year from the 20th to 24th September. Five days to enjoy music, gastronomy, culture, open days and street art. Here are six glimpses of everything it has to offer, and you can look this all up on the merce.barcelona website.

There can be no mercé without the pregón, and the honour this year of starting the festivities falls to the artist Carme Solé. Casablanca will be the guest city, and will share its vibrant sounds, dances and visual arts with us.

The 2024 Piromusical will definitely be remembered as one with a strong auteur style. Rosalía will be choosing the songs that will be played on 24th September at 10:00 p.m. The Avenida de la Reina Maria Cristina will be full once again with spectators who’ll be able to witness a breathtaking spectacle of bursts, light and colour, all perfectly in sync with music picked by one of the greatest artists in the world today.

Music is one of the main elements of the Barcelona Festival. Live performances by 140 artists and musical groups will take place on fourteen stages across the city, at Música Mercè, the BAM, as well as the concerts organised by radio stations.

And when it comes to popular culture, the 200th birthday of Josep Anselm Clavé will be commemorated this year, a musician whose L’aplec del Remei zarzuela will be performed on the 23rd. The city’s Aligá, which is even older, celebrates its 650th anniversary in the Plaça de Sant Jaume, on Sunday, 22nd September.

Elsewhere, the Ciutadella park will be the scene of the fourth edition of Terra i Gust, the sustainable food festival. Tastings, showcookings and workshops regarding food and drink will once again be on offer, and reflections will be made on food waste, sustainable fishing and water.

To cap it all off, the traditional La Mercè-Bimbo Global Race will take place on 29th September. The family race is added to the traditional routes this year, a fun and non-competitive activity set up to run a short and central route.Don’t forget that you can find all the information at merce.barcelona. Long live La Mercé and long live Barcelona!

The Biennial of Thought is .barcelona

This autumn, from 8 to 13 October, a new edition of the Biennial of Thought will bring debate and reflection back to the city’s streets and squares. The event will feature more than 100 experts on topics including democracy, memory, postcolonialism, feminism, technology and climate change and cultural debates.

Under the theme ‘The Day After It All’, the fourth edition of the biennaldepensament.barcelona will focus on deconstructing the defining principles and dynamics of the past two centuries, which are now at odds with a future where sustainability, social justice and the fight against inequalities are paramount.

To reflect upon these major philosophical debates and the global transformations happening all around us, the Biennial will feature 120 participants and 65 free activities, with no prior registration necessary. The list of notable guests includes Herta Müller, Perejaume, Wajdi Mouawad, Jacques Rancière, Jason Hickel, Zadie Smith, Elena Martín, Donatella della Porta, Javier Pérez Royo, Eliane Brum, Oyèrónké Oyèwùmi, Begoña Román, Las Hijas De Felipe, Maria Rovira (Oye Sherman) and Ana Polo, Rocío Quillahuaman and Jean-Rémi Carbonneau.

The debates will take place in the CCCB, Can Felipa, Canòdrom, La Model, Plaça de Masadas, Plaça de la Virreina and the gardens of Pla i Armengol, among other venues. This edition of the Biennial coincides with Barcelona’s year as the European Capital of Democracy, which aims to strengthen the connection between participation and citizenship.Visit biennaldelpensament.barcelona for all the information.

August in the city is .barcelona

The quintessential holiday month is here, and this year sees the sun and the hot weather sharing the limelight with the America’s Cup, the most important sailing competition of all. The event starts with the preliminary regatta on 22 August 202, followed by the first round.

The Port Olímpic will be gearing up for the occasion once its transformation into a people-centred space is complete. The revamped port will be a place where the blue economy, nautical sports, cuisine and the sea are at the heart of its economic and social activity. You’ll find full details at portolimpic.barcelona.

An event of this type brings a large volume of visitors with it. The website mobilitat.barcelona will be offering detailed information on mobility disruptions and alternatives, with the municipal journey planner “Getting there” providing travel recommendations while the competition is on.

Cultura.barcelona

In parallel to the sports competition, the Cultural Regatta offers a programme of activities based around culture, art, sports, cuisine, science and leisure, helping people to engage further with the world of sailing.

Various exhibitions will be offering complex visions of the link between human beings and the sea; addressing the theme through photography, archaeology and immersive experiences at different city museums, which can be found here. For its part, the Lletra Petita lecture cycle sees the city’s libraries join in with talks on books linked to the sea.

Once the Grec is over, the performing arts continue to fill Barcelona’s theatres with life, and the main site for checking what’s on is teatre.barcelona. Music will also be filling Montjuïc Castle during the evenings in August, with the Sala BCN festival. If you still want more, remember you can find all the cultural activity in the city at  cultura.barcelona

Good food

The high temperatures and humidity mean we’re more careful with how and what we eat. One healthy option is to do our shopping at Barcelona’s markets, which sell fresh local produce and are as close as this link: mercats.barcelona.

If you’re not in the mood for cooking, you can take advantage of the full range of eating options in the city, a global role model for gastronomy, known the world over.

We hope you really enjoy August in .barcelona!

.barcelona domain to take part in the GeoTLD group meeting in London

The .barcelona domain will be taking part in the GeoTLD group meeting in London on 5 and 6 September. The meeting is set to bring together representatives from various top level geographical domains (geoTLD) to discuss the opportunities and challenges for domains in today’s digital age.

The meeting will look at the evolution of the geoTLD market in the context of broader economic trends and ongoing digitalisation. There will be a review of factors such as economic growth, changes in internet use, the increase in the number of internet users and the growth of e-commerce. The goal is to critically assess how the geoTLD market works.

One of the essential topics in these meetings is security. Because of this, one of the sessions will look at aspects such as DNS abuse in geoTLDs, the efforts to keep these domains as secure spaces and strategies to show geoTLDs as safe online spaces.

The meeting will also look at the implementation of the NIS 2 directive, the EU regulation that will bolster cybersecurity measures to protect critical networks and information systems, broadening their scope and demanding greater coordination and resilience against cyberattacks.

Finally, there will be a talk with updates on the register, with each participating geoTLD sharing recent news and current developments.

The meeting rounds off with a summary of the questions still to be resolved and planning for the next meeting.

Improvements in Barcelona’s neighbourhoods with pladebarris.barcelona

The third edition of the Neighbourhood Plan, the series of small-scale actions to reduce inequalities in specific areas of Barcelona, is under way. The plan targets those who suffer the effects and consequences of vulnerability the most, such as women, elderly people, teenagers and migrants.

The plan should reach a quarter of the city’s population, around 27 neighbourhoods in seven different districts, with an overall investment of 300 million euros. Two unique urban regeneration plans will be added from 2025, for the mountain neighbourhoods and for La Marina del Prat Vermell.

The new Neighbourhood Plan consolidates some of the policies already started and acts in a more specific and intensive way in neighbourhoods covered in the previous editions. The plan is distributed in three main spheres: education and culture, public space and accessibility, and housing and renovation, with new strategies in the fight against inequalities.

You can find full information on the Neighbourhood Plan at pladebarris.barcelona.

Urban innovation in the city with .barcelona

In a context of climate emergency, the search for innovative solutions to achieve greater comfort and energy efficiency in buildings is essential. Barcelona is testing three prototypes that use industrialised construction to respond to the challenge to improve the habitability and sustainability of existing buildings, reducing CO₂ emissions and energy consumption.

The three winning projects from the ideas competition launched in 2022 by the Fundació BIT Habitat and the Municipal Institute of Urban Planning are the prototypes ALIGRA, Regenerar Barcelona and InnoFAB. The projects consist of large modules that resemble three building façades, designed to adapt to existing residential blocks.

Made of wood and metal, the structures add a new façade to buildings and help create new spaces (balconies, new rooms and communal areas), or to improve their insulation and the impact of the sun. Constructions are also planned for rooftops, to add solar panelling, green rooftops and enable buildings to collect and reuse rainwater. These industrial systems can be manufactured in parts in workshops and then assembled directly on buildings quickly, easily and economically.

The three prototypes will be monitored for 12 months at a site on the Campus Diagonal – Besòs of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), in Sant Adrià de Besòs, to assess their impact for health and comfort, urban resilience, energy efficiency, circular economy and biodiversity. This will be possible thanks to the installation of a smart sensor system able to continuously measure various parameters. You can find more information on the website bithabitat.barcelona.

Barcelona’s summer festival is called festivalgrec.barcelona

One of Barcelona’s classic summer events is back. The Grec festival goes into its 48th edition with a return to its origins. This year’s programme is an inner journey, in search of the essence of this performing arts event and looking back at the history of the theatre. Most of all, the event seeks to celebrate artistic friendships and the alliances formed over the last eight years.

The programme includes big names from the international scene, essential figures in theatre, dance and circus arts: Lola Arias, Angélica Liddell, Christiane Jatahy, Jan Lauwers, Krzysztof Warlikowski, William Forsythe, Johan le Guilhem and Hofesh Schechter will be bringing their projects to the Teatre Lliure, the Mercat de les Flors and the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya.

Artists and companies with strong ties to the Grec also play a prominent part in this year’s programme. Silvia Pérez Cruz will be opening this edition with the project Circular, based on her latest disc, Toda la vida, un dia, offering three days of performances surrounded by artist friends. Other names at this year’s Grec include Antònia Font, Pau Vallvé and Kae Tempest.

The festival extends to more than fifty venues in Barcelona from 26 June to 4 August, with 81 shows and over 51 parallel activities. You’ll find full information and ticket purchasing on the website: festivalgrec.barcelona.

Una foguera crema al mig de l'escenari del Teatre Grec de Barcelona. L'acompanya la llegenda "Grec. Festival de Barcelona. Estiu 2024."