The Results From Spain’s 5,000-Cap Concert Are In (Video)

A packed bowl in the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona.
Pau Venteo/Europa Press via Getty Images – A packed bowl in the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona.
Only six attendees tested positive in the aftermath, four of them are assumed to have contracted the virus prior to the event.

On March 27, Spanish rock stars Love of Lesbian played to a crowd of almost 5,000 people at the Palau Sant Jordi arena in the Catalan capital of Barcelona.

Jordi Herreruela, festival director of Cruïlla Festival, who promoted the test event, told Pollstar beforehand that people would be safer inside the venue than outside, and the results back this bold claim.
Of the 4,592 concert attendees who gave their consent to allow the analysis of their COVID-19 diagnose, six people were diagnosed positive within 14 days after the concert. 
“All six cases had mild or asymptomatic symptoms, no hospital admission was required in any case, and no secondary transmission to other contacts was observed. 
“In at least four of these six cases, the complete epidemiological survey carried out by the medical teams suggests that exposure to the source of infection occurred outside the concert,” the published results state.
After analyzing the data in collaboration with the Epidemiological Surveillance Service of the Catalan Department of Health, the scientists concluded that the cases detected represent a cumulative incidence at 14 days of 130.7 cases/100,000 inhabitants, while the cumulative incidence of the population of the city of Barcelona in the same age group and on the same dates was 259.5 cases/100,000 inhabitants.
The data led researchers to exclude the possibility that the indoor concert was an event of major COVID-19 transmission.
The results back a previous study conducted in Barcelona with 500 people in a club setting, as well as results gathered from scientific experiments and pilot events across the world.
Aside from the empty ranks in the 18,400-capacity arena, everything looks normal:
 – Aside from the empty ranks in the 18,400-capacity arena, everything looks normal:
5,000 people attended the March 27 test event, a concert by Spanish rock act Love of Lesbian.

All 5,000 attendees of the Love of Lesbian concert took a rapid antigen test on the morning of the concert, at which point only six people tested positive and could not attend the event. 

According to the organisers, the mass screening was carried out without incident by health professionals under the coordination of the city’s Fight AIDS and Infectious Diseases Foundation (Fundació Lluita contra la Sida i les Malalties Infeccioses). 
Wearing a FFP2 mask was mandatory during the concert. The ventilation inside the Palau was optimized in line with Barcelona’s current regulations. Staff managed the flow of people inside the venue, around the sanitary and catering areas, and the attendees were separated into three zones that didn’t cross over during the event. 
There was no need to keep a physical distance. According to the report, the audience scrupulously complied with all restrictions.
Festivals per la Cultura Segura, the overarching body comprising all involved in the study, views the study’s results “very positively.” 
“We will continue to work under the guidance of the scientific community in order to make further progress together with the institutions. The aim is for this established model to generate new proposals within the framework of a strategic plan of pilot studies such as the one carried out on March 27 at the Palau Sant Jordi,” a joint statement reads.
The test event was sponsored by Estrella Damm, Jägermeister, YEGO Urban Mobility, collecting society SGAE, ONEBOX, Hard, The Rolling Stage, Anou Audiovisuals and ticket providers Weezevent, who’s summarized the entire concert protocol in the graphic below.
The protocol on the night of the test concert:
 – The protocol on the night of the test concert:
Weezevent provided contactless ticketing.

Promoter Jordi Herreruela told Pollstar, “What I think will be necessary after this 5,000-people show, is another show, probably open-air, probably with more people, testing this mixed system, where we accept people that have been vaccinated as well as different kinds of tests.”
He remains confident, that this summer’s edition of Cruïlla Festival will go ahead, adding, “it’s not just us who think that way, it’s the scientists and the government, as well.”
Check out the official aftermovie below.