THERE WILL be no Algarve Summer Festival this year because organisers could not find an artist that would be able to attract a large enough audience to the Algarve stadium.
For the past two years, the music festival has produced a varied line up, including the Black Eyed Peas, James Blunt, Melanie C and Lenny Kravitz. The first time the event was held in 2005, it attracted 27,000 people and was subsequently moved to the Algarve stadium in Faro and extended to two days. The 2006 event produced a disappointing turnout however, attracting only 32,000 people over two days, much less than the 60,000 anticipated.
Despite this, it was tagged as the largest musical event in the Algarve last year and, according to president of the Região de Turismo do Algarve (RTA) Hélder Martins, “it will return next year.”
Martins has promised a diverse range of entertainment events throughout the Algarve summer season. Those mentioned so far include concerts from Lou Reed, Norah Jones, a performance of the opera Carmina Burana and parties hosted by new entertainment and leisure club Nikki Beach.
He emphasised that the lack of a major festival would not mean there would be less going on during the Algarve tourist season.
Martins offered no clue as to whether Algarve Rocks would return in 2007. The festival, held for the first time last July and headlined by Simple Minds, only attracted 2,000 people when 20,000 were expected.
Madonna
Martins also spoke of a Madonna concert that had been planned for the beginning of June at Praia da Rocha beach. The event would have been free entry, but as talks reached the final stages, the singer decided to pull out for personal reasons. According to Martins, her agent also realised that the concert’s running costs would add up to many millions of euros.
Talks have since been held with the Rolling Stones, but an agreement could not be reached as the costs were too high to accommodate the British rock band.
Do you have a view on this story? Email: [email protected]
