For now, only three of the protagonists are made known, but they will be 40, they have all been chosen and the MED Festival poster has been closed for a long time. Colombians «Bomba Estéreo» and Spanish Mercedes Peon will be at the Loulé world music festival, which takes place from June 26th to 28th in the historic town of Loulé, and will join fado singer Gisela João, the first name of the poster to be announced.
The Loulé Chamber lifted the veil a little more than this year's edition of the MED will be, albeit very little, at a press conference that took place yesterday in that city. The idea is to keep the expectation around the 11th edition of the event lit for some time, although everything has been «defined and closed since January».
On March 13, a few more names will be made known at the Lisbon Tourism Exchange. The Algarve Tourism Region and the Loulé autarchy will, for the first time, make a formal presentation of the festival at the Lisbon tourism fair and launch the website for the 11th edition of MED.
The complete poster is for getting to know each other, but it is already certain that the festival will return to the three-day format and will feature 40 artists from 16 different nationalities. Already the budget will be "sensibly the same as in 2013, even with a slight decrease, although it is not relevant", revealed the mayor of Loulé, Vítor Aleixo, in other words, around 200 thousand euros.
The mayor praised the speed with which the Festival's directors worked, in order to have everything closed "in January", which "allowed significant cost savings."
«According to the festival's director [Paulo Silva], the quality of the artists will not go down, on the contrary. In my opinion, it will be better than in recent years», said Vítor Aleixo.
The vice president of the autarchy and councilor responsible for the events area, Hugo Nunes, also highlights the work of Paulo Silva and Carlos Carmo. “They were the ones who ensured that the festival was conceived and the poster closed in early January. This allows you to divert money from travel agencies to the stamp of the artists,” he said.
Hugo Nunes did not deviate from the discretion strategy chosen to advertise the festival's poster, but he left two clues. The first is that he believes that «the bands that are yet to be announced will be very well received», guaranteeing that «the expectations of the public will not be disappointed».
Another clue is that the poster can be considered closed, but the name of a band has yet to be known “for reasons that will become clear later on”. The solution is to wait for March 13, to know some more names and, from that day, to pay attention to the MED 2014 website and social networks, where new protagonists will be revealed, in spaces.
As for the concept of the festival, it will not stray too far from what it has been in recent years, in terms of size and organization of the space, namely the maintenance of six stages, but it will be “widened” in some aspects.
One of them is the price of tickets, which “will certainly not increase” compared to last year (12 euros per person) and may even decrease in some cases. “We are still thinking about the price and there may be changes. We are studying the introduction of a ticket for the three days, more affordable and a family-friendly policy», revealed Hugo Nunes.
"There are many people who call our attention that a couple with two children, to come to MED, have to spend a lot of money just at the entrance", he explained, adding that trying to alleviate this problem is fundamental, since "the intergenerationality that characterizes the MED shall not be affected by the ticket price'.
Gisela João was already wondering when she would come to MED
At the launch session of MED 2014 one of the protagonists was present, the fado singer Gisela João, «a young rising star» in the Portuguese music scene. «I've always heard about the MED Festival, but I've never been here. I used to see references in other world music festivals and I have friends who speak highly of him. That's why I was very happy when I was invited», said the fado singer.
On the sidelines of the session, Gisela João said, always with a smile, that she had already asked her agents “when she would go to the MED”. Now that he is confirmed to be present, he revealed that he will present his album, but that "there will be some surprises", at the concert in June.
Tourism Region supports in-house and out-of-doors promotion
The Algarve Tourism Region will support the dissemination of the MED Festival, not only nationally, but also through the agencies with which it works in some of the main markets that send tourists to the Algarve.
«We can do this because this is not a festival done on top of the knee and was defined and closed in time to be well worked», in terms of dissemination, according to the president of RTA Desidério Silva.
The responsible for the entity responsible for the tourist promotion of the Algarve considers that the MED “has put Loulé on the map” and draws attention to the “interesting aspects” of the festival, which besides music offers “gastronomy, handicraft, culture and heritage”.
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