The 2024 edition hosts 150 shows and DJ sets on the festival’s seven stages over six days, as well as multiple cultural activities, in its ten extra-musical venues.
The reggae city that the Rototom Sunsplash has built from August 16 to 21 at the Benicàssim Concert venue has brought together this year more than 204,000 people who, over six days have shown that, at least for a few days, utopias can become reality to help build a more intercultural, tolerant and open society.
Audiences from 113 countries, with Spain, France, Italy, United Kingdom, Germany or Switzerland as main nationalities, have joined to enjoy the more than 150 shows and DJ sets that have hosted the seven stages of the festival Along with the main countries of origin, the festival has been visited by audiences from Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, Sri Lanka or Kuwait; Ethiopia, Rwanda, Nigeria, Zambia and Ghana; Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Chile, Peru, or Malta.
For its part, the broadcasting through the festival’s website, social networks and YouTube channel, has allowed 3 million people from all over the world to enjoy the main concerts as well as the sessions of the Social Forum -which this year have been moved to the Teatre Municipal de Benicàssim- or the talks of the Reggae University.
“Thanks to the collaboration with YouTube we have obtained 150% more followers compared to 2023 through this channel, with 1.5 million viewers who have followed streaming concerts and debates,” indicate from the organization of the festival.
The news about Rototom Sunsplash have also been projected in the media nationally and internationally. At the national level, and according to the first data from the monitoring platform Onclusive, publications about the festival have reached a potential audience of 1.3 million people in the last month and a half alone and generated an equivalent advertising investment of 8.2 million euros.
“Rototom Sunsplash is a tremendously diverse and eclectic festival in terms of musical and extra-musical activities, as well as in terms of stages, areas, cultural programme and gastronomy. What defines it is the international and multi-ethnic audience that comes every summer. We are visited by people from all over Europe but also from Latin America, Africa and Asia. We have always had an excellent response from the public, and in this edition the figures show that we are continuing on this path” says Filippo Giunta.
This Wednesday, 21st August, Rototom Sunsplash has brought down the curtain on an edition full of unique moments, thanks to the many special shows that have taken place on the stage. Amongst them, the one offered by The Wailers, Bob Marley’s own band, on August 20th for the 40th anniversary of the release of the album ‘Legend’; the tribute to the memory of Peter Tosh on Friday 16th or the tribute that the Swiss trombonist Samuel Blaser paid also on Tuesday 20th to the legacy of Don Drummond, legendary member and composer of many of the songs of the band Skatalites. Not forgetting the shows to celebrate SFDK‘s 30th anniversary and Green Valley‘s 20th anniversary on stage.
Besides, there have also been several artists who have offered at the Rototom Sunsplash in Benicàssim their only performance in Spain, as is the case of the headliners Alpha Blondy and the band Black Uhuru; as well as the show of the king of dancehall, Beenie Man, on the closing day of the festival, or the one given by another of the exponents of the genre, Busy Signal (Saturday 17th), as well as the stage show of OBF x Iration Steppas last night.
Rototom Sunsplash has also added during these six days a wide programme of extra-musical activities for audiences of all interests and ages.
These initiatives include the debates promoted through the Social Forum on such burning issues as the obstacles to freedom of speech with the ‘Assange case’ as a spearhead, the role of music, culture and art as a driver of social change, the decarbonisation and the fragile balance between machines and people. All these debates have brought together top-level speakers such as Stella Assange herself, a lawyer specialising in humanitarian law and Julian Assange’s partner, the rapper Arkano, the Artificial Intelligence expert Álvaro Pascual-Leone, the professor Andrés Pedreño, the engineer and president of the Lab Mediterráneo Foundation Héctor Dominguis, the doctor in Biodiversity Andreu Escrivà and the ex-director general of UNESCO, Federico Mayor Zaragoza, amongst many other names.
As for the more family-oriented side of the festival, this year 16,000 children under 13 years of age and 10,800 people over 65 years of age came to the festival grounds to enjoy all kinds of activities . “Our challenge is to continue to be an accessible, ageless festival that can be enjoyed by families with young children, young people and older people alike”, adds Giunta.
It is worth remembering that, as a novelty in this edition, the festival has allocated the 10 euros of the single contribution for the tickets that gave free access to minors, retired people and people with disabilities, towards the finance of the social projects of four organisations: AFA Castelló, Cocemfe Castelló, ANAR Foundation and Aurora Grup de Suport. Also for the first time this year, teenage audiences, between 13 and 17 years old, have been able to enjoy a 50% discount on the 6-day ticket.
The diverse Rototom audience has enjoyed the games and storytelling sessions at Magicomundo, the collective reflection debates at Ataya, the afternoons of Afro-modern dance at Jamkunda, the agro-ecology proposals, the yoga and natural therapies at Pachamama, the music and sports championships at Teen Yard, the Rototom Circus shows, the workshops of the Artisan Market, the works of the Social Art Gallery, the gastronomy of the international restaurants at the venue or the innovative programme of the Discovery Lab which, in collaboration with the prestigious CERN research centre of Switzerland, has made it possible to combine music and science in the same space.
This last corner, the Discovery Lab, is the first collaboration between CERN and a Spanish festival, following its replication in other similar events in Europe. The agile and didactic format of the workshops and shows, together with the team of science communicators who have joined the area, attracted a large audience every afternoon. Amongst these communicators we could find names such as the one of the mathematician and presenter of Órbita Laika, Eduardo Sáenz de Cabezón; the physicist Alberto Aparici, from the Institute of Corpuscular Physics (IFIC) of the CSIC and the University of Valencia; the professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Valencia, Vicent J. Martínez, and Cristina Romera-Castillo, oceanographer at the Institute of Marine Sciences of Barcelona (ICM-CSIS).
Six intense days full of activities that close an edition that also serves as a introduction to what will be the 30th anniversary of Rototom Sunsplash, which starts the countdown to blow out the candles of its thirtieth birthday in Benicàssim in August 2025.