Dreambeach Festival: three days of electronic music 50 meters from home in Almería

Sevillian Rocío Quero bought her home in El Toyo because of the location. This neighborhood is located 15 minutes from the city of Almería, 15 minutes from Cabo de Gata and another quarter of an hour from her work, in Níjar. The beach is one of its greatest assets, along with its natural surroundings, through which Quero rides his bicycle and walks his dogs. This summer, more than 30,000 people are expected to pass through there a day to attend the electronic music festival Dreambeach Festival, which will be held from August 1 to 4. After nine years in Cuevas de Almanzora, its organizers have decided to change the location for its tenth anniversary, which has David Guetta as its main attraction.

“There will be 19 hours of music a day, it will be impossible to rest. Our apartments are only 50 meters from the premises,” laments the neighbor. “I'm going to have a VIP box,” adds ironically, the leader of a group of residents concerned about the noise, safety or damage to the environment that the event will generate, endorsed by the Almería City Council and the Junta de Andalucía, in addition to telling with the support of the Ministry of Culture.

🆘 Botanical species and protected animals, in danger⚠️

👉🏻The machines are destroying the area protected by the Natura 2000 Network, without authorization or license!! ️

👉🏻@Mar_del_MarVaz will incur a crime if he does not prevent it.

The @DreambeachFest must be moved away from Toyo.

LET'S STOP IT!!️ pic.twitter.com/YVY6qEZJzM

— No to Dreambeach in Toyo-Retamar (@NoDrmBeachTOYO) March 8, 2024

The residential area of ​​El Toyo was built to accommodate the athletes who participated in the Mediterranean Games in Almería in 2005. When the competition ended, a handful of families bought some of these homes and moved. They were built by Fadesa, which later went bankrupt, another example of the consequences of the real estate crisis. The area was in agony and took a while to recover, but today it hosts around 10,000 people if the inhabitants of Retamar, next to the hospital, are taken into account.

It also has several four and five star hotels, a golf course and a large sports complex. During Holy Week, the rain and the strong easterly storm have hit this corner of Almería, full of tourists who were expecting different weather. “A festival here? Where? "If this is a family area!" asks María Alonso from Madrid as she gets out of the car in the parking lot of the Barceló Hotel. Next to it rest an excavator, a tractor and a water tank, machinery that these days has begun to prepare the 350,000 square meter land where the concerts will be held.

The future enclosure is still an area populated by small bushes. During a walk, while they are being sorted, the neighbors report that they began to mobilize just hours after the organization announced the change of location. It was Sunday, December 17. Since then, they have met with numerous political leaders, have gone to the Andalusian Ombudsman, distributed information leaflets, published numerous statements and have even filed a complaint with the European Parliament. They have also attended three municipal plenary sessions, where the political anger is increasing.

“The conclusion of everything we have done? A disappointment. "No one has provided us with information, there is no transparency," says Quero, who serves as spokesperson for the No al Dreambeach association in El Toyo, which has already managed to register in the registry of entities and has a dissemination group on WhatsApp with more of 400 people.

“We bring together people who are in favor of being able to rest here in the summer, that there is security, that we can maintain privacy,” adds Javier Cádiz, who has lived in the area since 2002. Cádiz emphasizes that the land borders protected areas. At an environmental level, one of them is part of the Natura 2000 Network and that any waste that ends up in the sea will contaminate the Cabo de Gata Natural Park, which begins just 1.5 kilometers from there.

This is how Villaricos beach looked after the @DreambeachFest 😔. We should rethink where we organize festivals and under what conditions. How much plastic would end up in the sea? pic.twitter.com/NOdjmd1iAp

— Gorzas (@Gorzas) August 12, 2019

And it highlights that, although these days this residential area seems quiet, every August traffic jams and overcrowding make daily life difficult. “What will happen if you add 35,000 or 40,000 more people a day?” she asks herself, while seeing how tickets for the show are already on sale at a price between 75 and 185 euros. To this you can add 45 euros more for the camping area, which has a

luxury

glamping or camping space where a tent with eight mattresses amounts to 850 euros.

Tourism and economic potential

The presentation of the macrofestival took place on December 21 in Almería. Its mayor, María del Mar Vázquez, celebrated the move to El Toyo because it will mean “a global showcase for this urbanization and for the entire city,” as she later repeated in Madrid, at the Fitur tourism fair. The delegate of the Junta de Andalucía in the province, Aránzazu Martín, also stressed that the event has grown in recent years thanks to the “unconditional support” of the Andalusian Government and that it is “a source of opportunities for the local community.” Both highlighted the economic impact it will leave on the city: the organization put it at 12.5 million in the 2023 edition, in which a thousand jobs were also created after the attendance of 135,000 people for four days, about 35,000 per day .

What do you think of the complaint and the neighborhood movements in recent months? Municipal sources respond that the importance of this event for the city — which also hosts other musical events such as Solazo Fest (May), Puro Latino Fest (July) or Cooltural Fest (August) — is so high that complaints from a group of people are not sufficient reason to cancel it. In addition, they point out that if the organizing company —Dreambeach 2024 AIE— requests permission and meets the requirements, they will have no choice but to give it. “If when they request it everything is in order, we will not be able to refuse because it would be prevarication,” these sources insist. Among the authorizations that the organization must obtain are that of the State Aviation Safety Agency - the land is just two kilometers from the Almería airport - which is in process.

Javier Cádiz and Rocío Quero walk through the area where the event is planned.Nacho Sánchez

The event's management assures that its technicians are preparing an acoustic study and that this indicates that "the homes will not be affected by the sound" of the music on the three stages of the festival. Also that the event will “fully” respect the lands included in the Natura 2000 Network and that the instructions will be followed “to maintain the protected space.” Of course, during the first work of preparing the land - work denounced by the Mediterranean Ecologist Group and the Save Mojácar association - they have already committed their first alleged infractions.

As explained by regional sources, the Department of Sustainability has opened a disciplinary file against the company for two reasons. The first was that the cleared plant remains were being buried under the ground—and they shouldn't have been. The second, because the work was raising a large amount of dust particles when removing the earth, which had not been previously moistened as requested, which generated inconvenience in the neighborhood.

The work was then suspended, although the organizing company hopes to resume it soon after solving the problems. “For the agents to come we had to call many times, because there is little surveillance,” denounce Rocío Quero and Javier Cádiz who, despite the fact that Dreambeach is getting closer to being held, they still feel optimistic. “We are going to go all out: if necessary, we will take legal measures. We have not started this to leave it halfway,” they warn.

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