Em Faro, these days, culture is “higher” and there's a lot to see at the top of buildings – and not just the views. The Açoteia – Faro Rooftop Festival started on Thursday, with a concert by Bateu Matou, and will still spread «a little bit of everything on the terraces» of the Algarve capital today, Saturday, July 8th.
Officially, the festival started yesterday and ends today, but on Thursday, many people gathered at Largo da Pontinha, in Faro, to hear the band Bateu Matou play on the terrace of the former Café Chocolate, which until today had never been used.
Previously, this stone-clad building, located at the top of Largo da Pontinha, had already hosted the first Açoteia Talk, a cycle of conversations associated with the festival.
On the same day, a mural was inaugurated on top of the Fábrica da Cerveja, in Vila-Adentro de Faro, a project carried out under the European Creative Rooftop Network (ECRN), an international network to which Faro belongs.
This was, basically, an appetite for the main course, which will also be served this Saturday.
In 2023, there are more terraces participating, compared to the first edition (in 2019), which allowed to reinforce the program, which includes musical duets such as Irma with Tiago Nacarato, Tatanka with Milhanas, João Gil with Tainá, Viviane and Tó Viegas, among many others, as well as solo concerts by names such as Goldcobra, Fernando Leal, Yuka or Nelson Conceição.
«Of the events that we have held over the years, in the area of culture, Açoteia was, perhaps, the one that left the most mouth watering, above all because the first edition in 2019 was a great success and, afterwards, it was three years without doing it, because of the pandemic», he told the Sul Informação Paulo Santos, vice president and councilor for Culture at the Chamber of Faro.
«When we decided to go ahead with the festival and launched the call document public, we realized that the 2019 edition had left something, a seed. This year, there are 35 roof terraces, compared to 20 in the first edition. There are also many more people, associations and projects that want to present themselves at the festival», he added, confessing: «this attraction that people, owners and cultural agents felt, even surprised us”.
The objective of Açoteia is exactly this: «to look at the city from another perspective and I think we are achieving that goal».
«Today, people use roof terraces not just for fun purposes – and rooftops are something that is a bit in fashion - but also for reasons of sustainability. People look at their terraces and see a way to, perhaps, save costs, improve the condition of the houses and make something out of them that is not just the place where they place the air conditioners and solar panels», sums up Paulo Santos .
The festival gives the opportunity to discover some of these spaces with a privileged view, many of them normally inaccessible to the general population.
Thus, Paulo Santos advises the public to walk around the city «discovering the 35 roof terraces», not least because there are some events that will be «very exclusive», since there are «very small roof terraces, where not many people can fit» and to which only the first to arrive will be able to access, “for security reasons”.
The festival will run from 18:00 to 00:00. Tickets, which must be purchased at the door of participating terraces, will cost 5 euros per person per day – free of charge for children up to 12 years old. Some of the roof terraces will have free entry.
The program can be consulted here
Photos: Hugo Rodrigues | Sul Informação
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