Cala Mijas Festival 2024 is cancelled

Cala Mijas Festival in 2023 (c) Oscar L Tejeda
Cala Mijas Festival in 2023

Cala Mijas Festival 2024 is cancelled

by Chris Chaplow

After two high profile editions the Cala Mijas festival promoters, Last Tour announced the cancellation of the Cala Mijas Festival 2024 on the 26th April 2024. The dates for 2024, published immediately after the 2023 festival were 28th to 30th August 2024. No artists had been announced and ticket sales had not commenced. In spite of months of problems between the promoter and the Town Hall the festival continued to be advertised misleading tourists booking their holidays.

Here is the announcement in full:

    "Today LAST TOUR has decided to terminate and render null the sponsorship agreement that linked it to the Mijas City Council on December 15, 2021, regarding the "Cala Mijas" festival, and has moreover decided not to promote the celebration of the festival "Cala Mijas" in its 2024 edition.

    This decision is due to the repeated and serious breaches committed by the City Council towards LAST TOUR, the most relevant of which is the non-payment of significant amounts owed as sponsorship for the 2023 edition. This non-payment has persisted despite the continuous payment claims made by LAST TOUR. In addition to this, there are other equally serious breaches, such as the lack of conditioning and provision of facilities at the venue. It is obvious that the unjustified default by the City Council of its contractual commitments prevents the continuation of the agreed collaboration, as it deprives LAST TOUR of essential income for promoting the festival in this and subsequent years' editions. What is even more regrettable is that it demonstrates the lack of interest from the municipal entity in ensuring the successful organization of the festival. Faced with such a stance, LAST TOUR has been forced to make the decisions to terminate the sponsorship and cease the organization of the festival.

    The termination for non-fulfilment has already been communicated to the City Hall and will take effect from today onwards.

    LAST TOUR rejects the actions of the City Hall and regrets, above all, to be forced to cease the organization and implementation of the future editions of the "Cala Mijas" festival, considering the success of the previous editions in 2022 and 2023.

    We infinitely thank all the audience who have accompanied us in these two magical editions. To the people of Mijas who have welcomed us and to all those who have worked and supported us to make this wonderful experience possible."

Background to the Cancelation

In 2021, Mijas Town Council published a public tender to organise a major international cultural event on unused land. Cala Mijas Festival was the brainchild of the Town Council team led by socialist Josele González. The tender was won by Last Tour, the veteran promoters of BBK Live. A five-year contract worth 6.3 million euros was signed to promote the "Mijas" brand as the sole sponsor of the festival.

For its part, Last Tour had to make an initial investment of eight million euros, which would increase by one million per edition until reaching 12 million in 2026.  Last Tour sold tickets for the 2022 and 2023 festivals. In 2023, a day ticket cost €82.50 and a three-day pass cost €189. After the festival the attendance was proudly announced as 110,000. As with most festivals, the wording is misleading as there were actually 110,000 gate passes, not attendees over the three days. The gate passes probably including staff, bands, crew, contractors. An orientative calculation therefor suggests gate receipts of €7m per year.

The first year was a great success, especially as it was held the weekend before the Andalucia Big Festival in Malaga city. The Town Hall proudly estimated the economic impact of the festival at 20 million euros, with an international audience of 27%.

After the 2023 edition, the Popular Party in oposition, held a press conference to demand that the Town Hall justifies in writing the investment made in the Cala Mijas festival, as well as the publicity impact and the economic repercussions. Although they say they are "in favour" of organising festivals of this type, the Popular Party express their doubts regarding the justification of the expenditure of public money. Source Mijas Communication.

Unexpectedly Mijas Town Hall changed governing party from the PSOE to the PP in the autumn of 2023. We wondered at the time how the PP-led council would support a 2024 edition after being so critical after the 2023 edition. Surprisingly, when they approved the Mijas budget on 27 December 2023, it included a new income line; "3 million euros per year for this [La Cala Mijas] festival in 2022, 2023 and the next one in 2024". This refers to income from the rental of the festival site, including two retrospective years. Clearly, tough economic re-negotiations were underway between the council team and the festival promoters.

Council Meeting - March 2024

Nothing was made public until the Mijas Council meeting held on 01-Mar-2024, which included a revealing discussion about the non-payment by the Council of seven invoices totaling 952,875 euros issued by Last Tour to the Council between January and July 2023. these were issues under of the agreement for the promotion of Mijas by the festival. Considering these invoices which corresponded to the 2023 edition were unpaid when the artists took to the stage, it is surprising that the 2023 edition went ahead.

The Mayoress of Mijas explained that the problem of payment was the inability to check the invoices. The Municipal Interventor (Auditor) had complained that the invoices had not been paid during the term of the previous government before September 2023. The Auditor had also raised other issues dating back to 2022 when the Council prepared the festival site; suggesting that this was work worth 500,000 € that should have been carried out by the festival promoter rather than the Council. In addition, the Council did not charge for the use of the public domain Cortijo Colorado festival site, which it is legally required to do.

The leader of the opposition, who was mayor before September 2023, has said that the work carried out by the council was justified because the site was intended to be multi-purpose and not just for the Cala Mijas festival.

He also expressed his doubts about the intentions of the current PP government team: "I think you don't really want to hold the festival, because the one who promoted it was another [PSOE] government team....What you're looking for is to try to confuse the issue so that the festival doesn't take place this year".

It was decided to hold a special council meeting to discuss this non-payment and two other invoices issued since August 2023, bringing the total to 1.2 million euros. This special council meeting never took place. The council later argued that two other invoices had "deficiencies" that should have been corrected by Last Tour, and this was the reason why the council never held a special council meeting needed to vote to overrule the council auditors' objections and make the payment.

Publicly, however, both the mayor and her councillors maintained for months that the festival was positive for Mijas and that they were committed to its continuation. Clearly, all negotiations (if there were any) had broken broken down by 26 April 2024, when the pull-out statement was published by Last Tour.

Mijas Councils response

The Mijas council claims that "despite repeated requests", Last Tour has never justified the annual investment required by the contract.

The council highlights that the contract stipulates that the promotor should have presented the line-up for the 2024 edition at the end of the 2023 edition. That early would be something unusual among major music festivals, for the second (2023) edition the artists were announced on 15-Nov-2022. Facing non-payment of the €1.2m invoices for the 2023 festival, Last Tour may be justified in not submitting a 2024 line-up. The Town Hall still complains: "This Town Hall does not even have a [2024] proposal".  

According to the council, there were a number of expenses "that may not be attributable to the town hall" and should have been paid to the promoter. The example cited was 50,000 euros for the shuttle buses that transported festival-goers from the campsite at the old hippodrome to La Cala and up to the festival site. The total of these costs, the council claims, "could exceed two million euros, a far cry from the 1.2 million euros the council is contractually obliged to pay".

Comment

The cancellation is bad news not only for Mijas, but also for Andalucia, which is trying to position itself as a must-stop on the EU concert circuit. In retrospect, it seemed untenable that a single town hall could sustain the sponsorship of such a high-profile event. Mijas' socialist government was clearly overstretched, not only in terms of funding but also in terms of writing the practical details into the promoter's contract. When the Popular Party took power at the end of 2023, instead of taking their institution's commitments seriously, however unpalatable, they chose to blame the previous government. For its part, the previous government, now in opposition, seems to have offered little help in sorting out this mess.

All the while, the 2024 date continued to be published on the festival's website, misleading a significant number iinternational tourists booking their holidays. This matter will clearly be the subject of an ongoing claim and lawsuit by Last Tour that will hang over Mijas for years to come.

Plan B

A few days after the unilateral cancellation (with or without due justification), the promoter of the Cala Mijas festival has launched its Plan B. Last Tour announced a Kalorama Madrid festival for the same dates as Mijas. Kalorama Lisbon took place in 2022 and 2023 and many of the headline artists were the same as those in Mijas, obviously on a different night. This pattern would have been repeated in 2024. When readers wrote to us asking about the Cala Mijas 2024 line-up, we suggested they look at Kalorama Lisbon.

Kalorama Madrid 2024 will be held at the IFEMA Madrid exhibition centre between 29 and 31 August, the same days as Cala Mijas, and will feature artists such as Massive Attack, Sam Smith and LCD Soundsystem.

This page last updated 01-05-2024.

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