The city will be celebrating its local festival on 23, 24, 25 and 26 September, with this year’s event marking a hundred and fifty years since the City Council took charge of the festivities for La Mercè.
The Festes de la Mercè website, now with its own .barcelona domain, will be offering a programme with over 500 activities this year. These include the shows in the street arts section, concerts and popular culture activities, with nearly 200 popular culture groups, 110 artistic companies and 114 musical formations all involved.
Opening speech and poster both by women
As usual, the opening speech gets La Mercè under way. On this occasion the speaker will be Custodia Moreno Rivero, a leading figure in the local residents’ movement in the city who played an important part in the disappearance of the shanty housing in El Carmel and Can Baró, as well as other struggles.
The poster for this year’s Mercè is by the renowned illustrator Malika Favre, who was born in Paris and is based in Barcelona. This year’s image represents Mercè as a powerful queen who at the same time embodies all the beauty of Barcelona.
A decentralised Mercè which promotes popular culture
La Mercè is once again a citywide affair, reaching corners of the city which were previously untouched by the festivities. Activities are programmed in 23 locations and venues in all, with popular culture also featuring heavily in this historic edition. The section of Passeig de Gràcia between the streets of Diputació and Rosselló will provide a space for popular culture to reconnect with the public, with the parades and fire-runs which were suspended last year being transformed into a commemorative procession featuring giants’ groups, human towers groups and falcon human formation groups.
Safe festival
Full safety measures will be in place for La Mercè, to continue tackling Covid-19. This means controlled numbers of spectators, who will need to book tickets for most activities. For its part, the music and fireworks spectacular will be adopting the same format as last year and can be seen from four points in Barcelona. The display will also be broadcast live by TV3.
