The lights go out. The room falls silent. Over the public address system, a voice asks the audience to switch off their mobile phones and announces that the show is about to begin. Behind the curtain, everyone takes their place. Only one final gesture remains: for the curtain to rise and the performance to begin.
It is this moment, when nerves and anticipation mingle just before the show begins, that theatres experience every September. After the obligatory August break, the machinery starts up again: box offices reopen, new programmes are unveiled, and rehearsals resume. But this September, the usual nerves of a new season are accompanied by the sector’s anticipation of taking the stage again after closing a historic season, with the challenge of building on this exceptional moment for the Barcelona and Catalan theatre scene.
The figures from the previous season justify this sense of anticipation. Barcelona’s theatres closed the 2025–2026 season with 3,176,328 spectators, a figure that not only marks the third consecutive year in which attendance has surpassed the three-million mark — a threshold that for years seemed difficult to reach — but also sets a new all-time record.
In total, that is almost 40,000 more spectators than the previous season, an increase of 1.27%, with average theatre occupancy standing at 67%. That average, however, conceals significant peaks throughout the year: in January, occupancy climbed to 79%, while during the third edition of the Cap Butaca Buida event, it reached 88.66%. The growth is even more pronounced at the box office. Barcelona’s theatres took in €103,093,801, 9.5% more than the previous season. In other words, not only are more people filling the seats, but the economic performance of the theatre sector is also growing.
More audiences, higher revenues and greater occupancy paint a picture that goes beyond a simple record: the sector is experiencing a moment that no longer seems exceptional, but increasingly looks like a sustained trend. What just a few years ago would have been an extraordinary achievement, difficult to repeat, is now beginning to take shape as a trend. “We can no longer speak of just another good season, but of a trend: this is the best moment in the history of Catalan theatre,” says Isabel Vidal, president of ADETCA (Association of Theatre Companies of Catalonia).
But a record like this is not explained only by the big names on the billboard or by the shows that fill the biggest theaters. It is built show by show, room by room, spectator by spectator. Because behind the more than three million spectators who have passed through Barcelona's theaters, there is a curtain that has been raised up to 13,196 times throughout the season, to make way for 1,289 shows.
And a large part of these shows have been performed in spaces that global figures may relegate to a secondary role, but which are essential to understand the vitality of the city's theater scene. These are the proximity venues, with up to 200 seats, which have also experienced a season of growth: 421,865 spectators have passed through them throughout the season, 13% more than the previous season. Revenue has also grown there, 20% more, up to 6.7 million euros, while the average occupancy in these venues has climbed to 65.59%.
From the Mago Pop phenomenon to musicals with a Catalan seal
And if this curtain has been raised on various stages —from proximity venues to large theaters—, it has also done so to make way for a billboard that does not respond to a single formula or genre. Magic, comedy, musicals, dramatic texts, dance, family proposals… The season has combined different ways of understanding the scene, although drama continues to be the great protagonist of this billboard, with 42% of the productions. Dance contributes 11% and family shows, 13%, while musicals have added about fifty titles (4% of the total productions).
But beyond genres and categories, the season's figures also have proper names. Among the 1,289 scheduled shows, some have managed to stand out especially and place themselves at the forefront of public preferences. Among theaters with more than 200 seats, the ranking is led by the magic phenomenon El Mago Pop, at Teatre Victòria, followed by El Fantasma de la Ópera, at Tívoli; Improshow, at Teatreneu — which once again sneaks among the most watched shows despite the fact that its formula is based, precisely, on the fact that no two performances are the same—; the return of La Cubana with L’amor venia amb taxi, at Romea, and Hamlet – Albert Pla and Peyu, at Coliseum. And among venues with fewer than 200 seats, the ranking is led by Corta el cable rojo, at Muntaner, followed by Permagel, Ovelles and Desaparellats, at Espai Texas, and Y no quedará ninguno, at Sala Ars.
The list also reveals another significant fact: four musicals in Catalan are among the ten most watched of the season: L’amor venia amb taxi, Ànima, El petit príncep and Germans de sang. A presence that is not anecdotal: 41% of the works programmed this season have been in Catalan.
For the first time, a photograph of all of Catalonia
The presence of Catalan also allows us to look beyond Barcelona. Because, although the capital concentrates a significant part of the country's theatrical activity, the map of performing arts does not end in Barcelona. For this reason, this year, for the first time, the balance that ADETCA presents at the beginning of each season broadens its focus: the data from Barcelona venues also incorporates that of theatrical activity throughout Catalonia, based on figures provided by the Department of Culture on the stable programming of municipalities integrated into the SPEEM (Public System of Scenic and Musical Facilities) and private venues outside Barcelona.
It is not yet a complete radiography of the entire territory —for example, athenaeums and civic centers are left out—, but it is a first step to understand the dimension of performing arts beyond the capital. The result is a performing activity that moves more than four million spectators, specifically 4,081,780, 115.6 million euros in revenue and an average occupancy of 67%.
Data that the Minister of Culture, Sònia Hernández, has defined as a "much more complete and representative photograph of the performing arts throughout the country." And the will is that this view can be further expanded in the coming years. The Government plans to launch the Cultural Data Observatory next year, linked to the future Law on Cultural Rights, with the aim of offering open and consultable data on all cultural activity, and not just theatre.
Having reliable and consultable data to make decisions is just one of the challenges the sector faces in the coming years. But there is another that goes beyond the figures: achieving audience diversification. Because, as the Councillor for Culture of the Barcelona City Council, Xavier Marcè, reminded, there are still citizens who "do not feel addressed by the venues." For this reason, both the city council and ADETCA are promoting measures such as the Cultural Bonus or the "Porta’m al teatre" (Take me to the theatre) project, an event scheduled for November 22 and designed to bring children closer to the stage experience. But reaching new audiences also involves maintaining and strengthening the spaces that make this offer possible, and, for this reason, the Catalan sector has taken advantage of the start of the season to demand a future for the Teatre Regina, a reference space in family theatre.
And, to make all these initiatives and new venues possible, the sector has also taken the opportunity to demand more resources and a sustained commitment to culture. In fact, reaching 2% of the public budget allocated to culture continues to be one of the main demands of the sector. And it is in the midst of this debate, between the successes achieved in the previous season and the challenges still pending, that Catalan theatre prepares this September to raise the curtain again, between expectation and nerves. It has done so, one more year, with the "Catalunya Aixeca el Teló" (Catalonia Raises the Curtain) gala, which this year reaches its 25th edition.
Twenty-five years raising the curtain
And if every September raising the curtain means kicking off a new season, this time Catalan theater has taken advantage of its inaugural gala to look back before starting again, one more September, a new theater season. For this reason, the Catalunya Aixeca el Teló gala, held this Monday at the Gran Teatre del Liceu as the start of the theater season and which this year reaches its 25th edition, has turned the anniversary into a journey through the last twenty-five years of the Catalan scene.
Because, more than just looking at the current moment of success and the figures that accompany it, the gala wanted to focus on the path that has made it possible to get here: the social and historical changes, the shows and the music that have marked generation after generation, but also the crises and difficult moments that have tested the sector and that, in one way or another, have also contributed to transforming it and bringing it to this historic season.
A journey through twenty-five years of theater and galas that has been told through the story of Mont, a teacher who in 2001 dreams of becoming an actress. During ten scenes, conceived as parts of a great musical, her life advances at the same time as the world of performing arts, experiencing historical events such as the Forum of Cultures, the recognition of equal marriage, the economic crisis, the indignados movement, 1-O or the pandemic.
This journey, under the artistic direction of Joan Maria Segura and with musical direction and arrangements by Xavier Mestres, has been told through shows and music that also form part of the memory of these twenty-five years: from the choral number of Money, from Cabaret, to pieces from Les Misérables, and an apotheosic Viva la vida as a closing. A last song that wanted to look both back and forward, celebrating the past, present and future of a Barcelona and Catalan scene that, after twenty-five years, continues to evolve and write its history.
I now, after looking back —to the previous season and to 25 years of recent history—, it's time to start again. The curtain rises again on a season that arrives with the expectation of maintaining the pace of records, but also with challenges that go beyond the figures.