Gonzalo Ortega|
Calahorra (La Rioja), (EFE) seven planned locations and who have enjoyed more than 110 hours of “mainstream” music of different genres,
Luis Miguel López, owner of one of the companies responsible for organizing the festival, has assured EFE that Holika “has been a complete success”.
“By increasing the investment, it has also been possible to increase the number of hired personnel, but all the effort has been worth it and the result has been unbeatable,” López added, with satisfaction as soon as Kabasaki’s function finished, which has put an end to the Holika V Anniversary.
Holika has far exceeded all their expectations and has established itself in this edition as one of the best festivals in which to enjoy national and international artists within the Spanish scene, thus complying with the labels that have classified it as the best in the world. north of Spain.
The event, which has celebrated its fifth anniversary and has had a budget higher than that of previous editions, more than 2.5 million euros, has structured its expansion area into three zones, where, according to the organization, almost 80,000 people throughout the entire festival.
A space for concerts, with the main and largest stage “Negrita” and a secondary one “Cutty Shark”; the camping ground, which was divided into Arcadia, Traiana and the Glamping area; and a third area with parallel activities in the complex of
La Planilla and Paseo del Mercadal, where every morning a “pool party” has been enjoyed, enlivened with the music of growing local DJs.
six hour wait
However, the festival started on Wednesday with some organizational failures, with long lines of up to six hours and complaints from the young people who gathered to enter the venue.
This is how Andrea Pérez, a 19-year-old teenager from Santurtzi (Vizcaya), has remembered it, who has enjoyed the festival in the company of her friends and who experienced these initial defects firsthand.
He explained to EFE that they arrived at the Calagurritan festival area at seven in the afternoon, although they managed to enter the campsite after twelve at night.
“There were too many people for very little space in the campsite, the lines advanced little and took a long time,” added this young woman, who indicated that, after the organization set up a new camping area, the process was streamlined and “a lot of people managed to get in a short time later.”
“We had to wait in three lines: the one for the general season ticket bracelet, the one at the campsite and the line to access the latter”, detailed the young woman from Santurtziarra, who, after almost five hours of waiting, managed to settle inside the Traiana campsite and after midnight.
Vibrate with the concerts
As for the concerts, within the “line up” of the Holika poster, there were some of the best international artists, such as Rels B, Eladio Carrión, Emilia, Justin Quiles, Mora, Ryan Castro and Tokischa, distributed between the afternoons and Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights last.
These performances, accompanied by a spectacle of lights, columns of fire, flashes of smoke and fireworks, made it possible to exponentially increase the quality of the concerts and the festival as a whole.
This is supported by Daniel Carrillo, a 23-year-old young man from Logroño who has attended all the editions of Holika and has been able to witness its evolution in situ.
“The festival already grew when it went from being held in Cortes (Navarra) to doing it in Calahorra, but the deployment of materials and organization have allowed Holika to take an immense leap in terms of the spectacular nature of the concerts,” Carrillo told EFE.
Thousands of young people from Generation Z have vibrated in Calahorra to the rhythm of the artists, including the great performances by María Escarmiento, Pole, Sara Landry, Lyano, Ballesteros, Marco Faraone, Andrés Campos, although those who have Triumphed among the crowd have been the aforementioned Eladio Carrión, Mora and Rels B.
In addition, due to the massive attendance of the public, more than 600 Civil Guard agents and some 150 of the Municipal Police of Calahorra have ensured the safety of the attendees at all times, both outside the concert venue and within the space itself. , with controls at the entrance and exit to avoid setbacks.