Sandra García-Sanjuán, the friend of the stars who turns the Costa del Sol into the epicenter of exclusivity with Starlite

Putting a price on the contact list of Sandra García-Sanjuán (Tenerife, 1972) is an impossible mission.

Her network of friends is enviable.

She got started when she started writing reports for

she in her university stage and she expanded it by founding an artist contracting company.

Daughter and granddaughter of hotel entrepreneurs, she inherited an entrepreneurial flair.

She accumulates magazine covers at the same rate as persuasiveness, like the one she squandered one spring morning in 2010 at Antonio Banderas' house in Los Angeles (California, USA).

during a

convinced the actor to participate in the first Starlite charity gala to be held that summer in Marbella.

She was the seed of the eclectic Starlite Festival, which she has directed since 2012. “In the first edition we lost many millions of euros, it was the most expensive master of my life.

But we continue forward, aiming at the Moon to be able to hit the stars”, says the businesswoman, enveloped in an aura of happiness.

Resident in Madrid, the Canarian rents a gigantic villa every summer in the most exclusive area of ​​the city of Malaga to direct the festival, sponsored by Catalana Occidente.

In its garden, two carob trees with more than a century of life stand out, an army of terrible tiger mosquitoes and a small pool next to the guest house.

It is a bubble, almost unreal for the majority of the population, where the silence is only broken by the cicadas scorched by the humid heat that makes them sweat at all hours.

García-Sanjuán fans himself to cool off while he receives EL PAÍS and, immediately afterwards, poses with a white caftan.

He coquettishly reviews the photographs while his cell phone doesn't stop ringing.

On the last call he spends nearly 30 minutes adjusting the cover design for Starlite's economic impact report.

His figures are scary:

more than 300 million in 2021 and 2,000 million since it started, during which time they have created 31,000 jobs and received two million people.

And this year they are not short.

They have broken their record with 362,000 attendees and a contribution of more than 315 million euros to the Spanish GDP (their impact since 2012 is 1,440 million).

On its stage they have gone from Tom Jones and Paco de Lucía to Julio Iglesias and Taburete, as the documentary shows

, directed by Paola García-Sanjuán —her sister— which can be seen on September 27 at the Capitol Cinemas in Madrid,

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Trained at the German school in Tenerife, her great-grandmother had a haberdashery and her grandfather and father promoted a hotel group on the islands.

She studied Business Economics at the CEU San Pablo University in Madrid and the Complutense University, in Madrid, while she made trips to Los Angeles to write reports for

,

and

and created his first large company, Avory Celebrity Access, which manages the hiring of public figures for events.

In this context, he met Banderas, godfather of a solidarity gala that in its recent thirteenth edition featured Richard Gere or William Levy.

"In the first two years we saw that it had impossible costs to assume for a charitable foundation, so we decided to surround it with events, like Elton John does in the United States or amfAR in Cannes," explains García-Sanjuán.

In 2012 he invited 13 artists thinking that only two or three would agree to participate.

They all said yes.

“I couldn't turn them down anymore, so I put on a festival,” he adds.

“My husband, an engineer and more squared, freaked out;

but we got it”, he stresses.

The actress and presenter Ana Obregón, awarded at the Starlite charity gala.Daniel Pérez (EFE)

The model Carla Pereyra and the actor Antonio Banderas pose upon their arrival at the Starlite charity gala.Daniel Pérez (EFE)

The presenter María Casado and her partner, the singer, Martina Di Rosso, at the Starlite charity gala. Daniel Pérez (EFE)

Actor William Levy poses upon his arrival at the Starlite charity gala, which is being held at the Nagüeles quarry in Marbella (Málaga).Daniel Pérez (EFE)

Richard Gere and Alejandra Silva, upon arrival at Starlite 2022 in Marbella, Málaga.lorenzocarnero/cordonpress (Cordon Press)

Gunilla von Bismarck and her ex-husband Luis Ortiz.Daniel Pérez (EFE)

Victoria Federica de Marichalar, daughter of Infanta Elena, upon her arrival at Starlite 2022.Daniel Pérez (EFE)

The Minister of Industry, Tourism and Commerce, Reyes Maroto, in Starlite 2022.lorenzocarnero/cordonpress Picasa (Cordon Press)

The soprano Ainhoa ​​Arteta poses upon her arrival at the Starlite 2022 charity gala, which is being held at the Nagüeles quarry in Marbella (Málaga).Daniel Pérez (EFE)

The American actor Richard Gere and the businesswoman and philanthropist Alejandra Silva.Daniel Pérez (EFE)

The actor and director Santiago Segura poses upon arrival at the Starlite charity gala in Marbella (Málaga).

Daniel Perez (EFE)

The actress Vanesa Romero.Daniel Pérez (EFE)

The singer Diego Torres.Daniel Pérez (EFE)

The presenter Luján Argüelles poses upon her arrival at the Starlite charity gala.Daniel Pérez (EFE)

The actor Iván Sánchez and the Venezuelan model Irene Esser at the Starlite gala.lorenzocarnero/cordonpress Picasa ( / Cordon Press)

The actor Óscar Martínez and his wife, Marina Borensztein, pose upon their arrival at the Starlite charity gala.Daniel Pérez (EFE)

The pianist Chucho Valdés and his wife, Lorena Salcedo.Daniel Pérez (EFE)

The actor Antonio Banderas and his partner Nicole Kimpel.Daniel Pérez (EFE)

The singer Andrea Bocelli and his wife, Veronica Berti.Daniel Pérez (EFE)

The bullfighter Fran Rivera and his wife Lourdes Montes.Daniel Pérez (EFE)

The designer Ágatha Ruiz de la Prada and the lawyer José Manuel Díaz-Patón.Daniel Pérez (EFE)

The Mexican actress Aislinn Derbez.Daniel Pérez (EFE)

Princess Beatriz de Orleans poses upon her arrival at the Starlite charity gala, which is being held at the Nagüeles quarry in Marbella (Málaga).

Daniel Perez (EFE)

The businesswoman Fiona Ferrer.Daniel Pérez (EFE)

American actor Richard Gere and his wife Alejandra Silva pose upon their arrival at the Starlite Gala.Daniel Pérez (EFE)

Her husband —whom she defines as “a very brilliant guy”— is the Catalan businessman Ignacio Maluquer, who searched Google Maps for the ideal location to build an auditorium to host the unexpected concerts.

He found it in the Nagüeles quarry, then a dump from which 100 garbage trucks left.

He had just sold ParkHelp, a company that made him a millionaire after inventing the device that warns if a

is empty or occupied with a green or red light.

He invested his money in preparing the venue and developing that first edition, inaugurated by the singer George Benson.

They lost a lot of money.

“He asked me if, after everything he had learned that year, he believed he could make it a success and I said yes,” recalls García-Sanjuán.

They continued and time has proved them right.

Along the way, the marriage has continued its solidarity work - they collaborate with several NGOs and promoted a research chair against covid - and has created the Starlite Group, with a fashion subsidiary - Starlite Universe, with collections by Banderas, Alejandro Sanz or Naomi Campbell— and another audiovisual, Starlite Films.

Last weekend, Maluquer was photographed at the Goyesca in Ronda with Santiago Abascal, leader of Vox.

Today, the festival, which includes restaurants and a nightclub to open 10 hours each summer day, is the summer reference on the Costa del Sol and a beacon of a Marbella that has come to the fore where the

It's a bad summer dream.

The luxury real estate and tourism market is skyrocketing and the festival is a true reflection.

It is enough to walk through his concerts to verify that the profile of attendees is homogeneous: few are concerned about money.

The organization strives to make them feel like stars for a day and surrounds them with familiar faces.

From Victoria Federica to Paula Echevarría, from Carla Pereyra to Antonio Banderas and the Kimpel twins.

There is no night without celebrities in the VIP boxes.

It is one of the keys to the appointment, which is nourished by the infinite agenda that García-Sanjuán keeps on his phone.

The businesswoman Sandra García-Sanjuán at the entrance of her house in Marbella, in August 2022. Garcia-Santos (El Pais)

“I have many contacts, yes, but that is not the important thing.

The value is knowing that you pick up the phone and people answer, ”says the businesswoman, who clarifies that she does not pay the celebrities who come to Starlite.

"They come because they enjoy and are already part of the family," says the Tenerife.

Some spend several days at her house, like this summer Cayetana Guillén Cuervo, Ainhoa ​​Arteta, Susanna Griso or Valeria Mazza, accommodated for several weeks.

"Receiving friends from all over the world, who are so interesting, who have succeeded and are role models for society, is a privilege," she points out with a huge smile.

It is her great satisfaction, her dream.

Creating her own firmament of stars is a joy that she celebrates daily.

“When you are generous, life returns it to you: I have always believed in the universe”,

he points out while recommending readings by Paulo Coelho and Deepak Chopra and assures that he has a gift for identifying those who are going to be great stars.

“It's hard to explain, but I see it.

They have it recorded in their destiny”, he tries to clarify.

The director of Starlite confesses that, for her, the best moment of the festival is when she goes up on stage and sees “all the people with their eyes shining, like fireflies, with happiness”.

She is proud of having maintained the event during the two toughest summers of the pandemic and ignores the bad moments, such as the problems with the Environmental Prosecutor at the beginning or when a criminal gang camouflaged as workers stole 70,000 euros in 2021. Now looks to the future with optimism, happy with the success of the eleventh edition of a festival —which has scheduled 89 concerts from June 10 to September 3— and is preparing to face the twelfth in 2023. Meanwhile, it negotiates exporting the Starlite Festival to other countries as it did in Mexico in 2016, the year in which Singapore, Moscow, Miami or Brazil were discussed.

"We have no end," she warns.

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