Primavera Sound 2025 Official Review

PRIMAVERA SOUND 2025: SUGAR, SPICE, AND EVERYTHING NICE

Photo Credit: Christian Bertrand

Primavera Sound, Barcelona’s premiere summer-opening festival, has grown from humble indie beginnings to a multi-city mega-fest with a global calendar of events and a near-perfect perennial lineup. With roughly 70k fans visiting the Parc del Fórum each day across the festivals main three days (within a whole week of official Primavera concerts across the whole city), it’s natural that not everyone will leave happy. However, despite the growing pains and generational vibe shifts, Primavera proves once again that it deftly walks the line of being both a tastemaker as well as an adept follower of the shifting tastes of younger generations.

You might be interested in my 2024 Primavera Sound guide, which covers basically everything from culinary critiques to festival facts. You can find my 2024 Primavera Sound writeup, or 9 Reasons Why Primavera Sound is a Bucket List Barcelona Festival, here.

For this 2025 edition and this article below, I’ll focus my Primavera Sound coverage on a general review of the lineup, crowd control, festival layout and facilities, and what to expect from next year as well as in overall rating for the 2025 edition.

If you’d like to check out some quick-read lists for my top 11 sets this year you can see that here.

Finally, for a fun look at the changing landscape of pop vs. underground music related to Primavera Sound and its past and future selves, you can see that here.

Without further ado, I present to you my 2025 Primavera Sound official recap and guide!

LINEUP

Photo Credit: Clara Orozco

This year’s lineup, for me, was really something else. As I mentioned in my 2024 Primavera Sound official guide, each recent year has seen younger fans typically chasing the major headliners, and old heads (I think I’m getting there, if not already there) hitting the underground sets on smaller stages.

One of the reasons I’ll gladly go back to Primavera each year (aside from the fact that I live here and can be home in 20min from the festival, the weather is incredible, I meet amazing people, and I write these phenomenal little reviews), is the diversity of the lineup. Sure, there are techno or metal or hip-hop or even pop-focused fests I can check out with a deep dive into any of those genres. However, without fail I can always count on dozens of acts I’d like to see each year at Primavera across multiple genres. This year I shaved my “would see” list of 60 or so names down to about 30 “really want to see” acts. I would say I caught 25 or so out of those due to clashes and following the general whims of the group each night.

The obvious draw for this year’s sold-out-faster-than-any-other-year lineup were the pop girlies, and the pop girlies reigned supreme. Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX, and Chappell Roan drew record-size crowds from increasingly younger demographics, and I honestly have got to applaud the talent bookers for making it happen.

The appeal of this trifecta lent itself to the Powerpuff Girl branding, a rapid sellout, and strategically speaking, the stable financial projections to book lesser-known or more obscure acts across other stages.

I’m decidedly not a pop-head, but I belt out Pink Pony Club and HOT-TO-GO both alone at home as well as with my grade-school nieces. Additionally, while the main stage areas are somewhere I avoid like the plague during these mega-popular artists, the other stages are more comfortable and reminiscent of years past. The only downside seems to be overcrowding in some areas with the sell out, as well as major headliner fans flooding main stage areas during other artists’ sets and causing bottlenecks (if you’re going to go early, at least stand up and dance to other artists!). Overall, no major issues that ruined the weekend.

CROWD CONTROL

Photo Credit: Silvia Villar

On the note of overcrowding, I think that the organization has done an impressive job with the mismatch in crowd sizes moving amongst the Revolut and Estrella Damm main stages to other areas like Cupra, Plenitude, Amazon Music, and the smaller stages by the sea including the new Cupra Pulse (former Boiler Room) and Levi’s Warehouse electronic stages.

Booking headliners that draw a massive portion of the total attendees, especially ones with devout followings that will likely queue early and camp out during other sets, can cause serious problems for the movement of tens of thousands of people in a festival area that is, in reality, not so big compared to larger camping fests. The modern format and layout of stages, though, really does allow for easy movement if unless you’re fighting to leave or get to the front of Mordor (as locals and long-time attendees refer to the sometimes-chaotic main stage area).

Nights like the first Thursday of the 2022 double-weekender saw scary and potentially dangerous crowd movement with festival staff seemingly in over their heads. Something that Primavera Sound does well, however, is respond to problems and make efforts to fix them. Crowd movement was smooth in general, even with long lines for some stages (Plenitude, Levi’s Warehouse, Cupra Pulse) and bathrooms (main stage bathroom situations were extremely frustrating during the bigger headliners), but waiting for bathrooms or drinks is to be expected at large-scale events. The general ability to hop from set to set was pretty easy this year!

FESTIVAL LAYOUT AND FACILITIES

Photo Credit: Gisela Jane

Past editions have seen Primavera Sound spread out across the Besós river into sandy beach areas, or have multiple stages fixed near the festival entrance. This year was similar to 2024 in that the festival area was more compact. I felt that sound bleed was controlled much better in 2025, without too much bass leaking into one stage or another even with some acts cranking out their hits only a couple hundred meters apart.

I loved that the organizers brought back the stage tucked in the back of the mainstage area near the food court, the Green Stage or as it was also called this year, the Plenitude stage. Typically, this area plays host to electronic acts on the heavier/groovier or more obscure side, such as the likes of DJ Koze, Mala Junta, and Nicola Cruz. While main stage-goers in the past complained about the heavy bass from this little electronic paradise creeping into the headliner sets a short walk away, I heard far less such talk from 2025 attendees.

I would say that the ease of moving between the stages in this current layout, save for fighting to get to the front of a major main stage act, is a big plus for me.

The only major change I would suggest to the Primavera Sound organizers would be to add separate urinal areas at each bathroom to remove some people from the main queues, as well as have a more open bathroom entrance format in order to avoid bottlenecks (looking at you, VIP-side main stage toilets). For a festival its size, though, Primavera is far from the worst in terms of wait-time for bathroom and beers.

OVERALL RATING AND LOOKING TOWARD 2026

Photo Credit: Silvia Villar

Ok, I’ll admit, I’m biased. I love this festival and even though things are more expensive than my first edition a decade ago (ageing myself) or the lineup is getting more commercial, it still draws my friends and I out to share something special every year. For me it’s the true start to the Mediterranean summer and festival season, and I can be my best music-snob self or let loose to some cheesy commercial pop or dances tunes.

Due to the lineup diversity, overall good vibes of the attendees (curated by the mix of music and cultivated Primavera brand), and great organization this year alongside pristine weather: I give this year’s 2025 Primavera Sound a solid 9/10. No festival is perfect, and this one has its faults like any other, but I absolutely love it and the type of crowds it draws.

So what can we look forward to in 2026?

Well, for one thing, early bird tickets are already on sale.

Yes, prices are getting steeper and that sucks. I won’t pretend that all of this increase will go to fund better lineups, fine-tuned sound, more staff, etc., but I do know that the festival is always improving and riding that fine line between indie-innovator and crafty follower of what’s hot in the mainstream.

In 2026 we can expect more big names, though I would assume not an A-list pop trio like Charli, Sabrina, and Chappell. We will also likely see an ever-younger demographic across all genders, sexual orientations, and nationalities, and a few surprise underground acts from legendary scenes or up and comers from nascent ones. The festival continues to promote diversity in lineup, attendees, and overall ethos. What I know for sure is that I’ll be there and it’ll be another one to remember.

Thanks for reading my 2025 Primavera Sound guide/review! See you next year in Barcelona.