The lights go down. The room falls silent. Over the speakers, a voice asks people to switch off their phones and announces that the show is about to begin. Behind the curtain, everyone takes their place. All that remains is for the curtain to rise and the performance to begin.
This moment, when nerves and anticipation mix together right before a show starts, is one theaters experience every September. After the mandatory August break, the machinery starts up again: box offices open, new programs arrive, and rehearsals resume. But this September, alongside the usual nerves of any season opener, there's the added anticipation of a sector stepping back into the spotlight after closing out a historic season, with the challenge of sustaining this exceptional moment for the Barcelona and Catalan stage.
The numbers from last season justify this excitement. Barcelona's theaters closed out the 2025–2026 season with 3,176,328 spectators — a figure that not only means clearing the three-million mark for the third year running (a threshold that for years seemed out of reach) but also sets a new all-time high.
That's nearly 40,000 more spectators than the previous season, a 1.27% increase, with average theater occupancy at 67%. That average, though, masks some significant peaks throughout the year: in January it reached 79%, and during the third edition of the Cap Butaca Buida (No Empty Seat) event, it climbed as high as 88.66%. The growth is even more pronounced when it comes to box office revenue. Barcelona's theaters brought in €103,093,801, up 9.5% from the previous season. In other words, not only are more seats being filled, but the economic value of each theater season is growing too.
More audiences, more revenue, and higher occupancy paint a picture that goes beyond a simple record: the sector is living through a moment that no longer seems exceptional, but increasingly established. What would have been an extraordinary, hard-to-repeat milestone just a few years ago is now starting to look like a trend. "We can no longer talk about just another good season — this is a trend: the best moment in the history of Catalan theater," sums up Isabel Vidal, president of ADETCA (Associació d'Empreses de Teatre de Catalunya).
But a record like this isn't explained by the big names on the marquee alone, or by the shows that fill the largest theaters. It's built show by show, venue by venue, spectator by spectator. Behind the more than three million spectators who passed through Barcelona's theaters, the curtain rose 13,196 times over the course of the year, for 1,289 different shows.
Many of these performances were staged in venues that the overall numbers can easily overshadow, but which are essential to understanding the vitality of the city's theater scene. These are the neighborhood theaters, with up to 200 seats, which also saw a season of growth: 421,865 spectators passed through them over the year, up 13% from the previous season. Revenue also grew, up 20% to €6.7 million, while average occupancy at these venues reached 65.59%.
From the Mago Pop phenomenon to homegrown Catalan musicals
And if the curtain rose across such a wide range of venues — from neighborhood theaters to major stages — it also rose on a lineup that doesn't follow a single formula or genre. Magic, comedy, musicals, drama, dance, family shows... the season blended different ways of understanding the stage, though drama remains the leading genre in the lineup, accounting for 42% of productions. Dance made up 11% and family shows 13%, while musicals added around fifty titles (4% of total productions).
But beyond genres and categories, the season's numbers have names attached to them too. Among the 1,289 shows scheduled, some stood out in particular, topping audience preferences. Among theaters with more than 200 seats, the ranking is led by the magic phenomenon El Mago Pop, at the Teatre Victòria, followed by El Fantasma de la Ópera at the Tívoli; Improshow at the Teatreneu — which once again makes the list of most-watched shows, even though its whole premise is that no two performances are alike; the return of La Cubana with L'amor venia amb taxi at the Romea; and Hamlet – Albert Pla i Peyu at the Coliseum. Among venues with fewer than 200 seats, the ranking is led by Corta el cable rojo at the Muntaner, followed by Permagel, Ovelles, and Desaparellats at the Espai Texas, and Y no quedará ninguno at the Sala Ars.
The magic of Mago Pop remains one of the most-watched shows of the past season.
The list also reveals another telling detail: four Catalan-language musicals rank among the ten most-watched shows of the season — L'amor venia amb taxi, Ànima, El petit príncep, and Germans de sang. That presence is no coincidence: 41% of the works staged this season were in Catalan.
For the first time, a snapshot of all of Catalonia
The prominence of Catalan also invites a look beyond Barcelona. Because although the capital accounts for a major share of the country's theater activity, the performing arts map doesn't end there. For this reason, this year, for the first time, the report ADETCA presents at the start of each season broadens its scope: alongside data from Barcelona's theaters, it now also includes theater activity across Catalonia as a whole, drawn from figures provided by the Department of Culture on the regular programming of municipalities under the SPEEM (Sistema Público de Equipamientos Escénicos y Musicales) and private venues outside Barcelona.
It's not yet a complete picture of the entire region — community centers and cultural associations, for instance, are still left out — but it's a first step toward understanding the scale of the performing arts beyond the capital. The result is an activity that draws more than four million spectators — 4,081,780, to be exact — with €115.6 million in revenue and average occupancy of 67%.
Minister of Culture Sònia Hernández described the data as offering "a far more complete and representative snapshot of the performing arts across the whole country." The goal is to broaden this view even further in the coming years. Next year, the regional government plans to launch the Cultural Data Observatory, tied to the upcoming Law on Cultural Rights, aiming to provide open, searchable data on cultural activity as a whole — not just theater.
Having reliable, accessible data to inform decisions is just one of the challenges the sector faces in the years ahead. But there's another that goes beyond the numbers: diversifying audiences. As Barcelona City Council's Culture Councillor, Xavier Marcè, pointed out, there are still residents who "don't feel that theaters speak to them." For that reason, both the city council and ADETCA are pushing initiatives like the Bonus Cultural and the Porta'm al teatre ("Take Me to the Theater") project — a day planned for November 22 designed to introduce children to live theater. But reaching new audiences also means maintaining and strengthening the venues that make this offering possible, which is why the Catalan sector has used the season's kickoff to call for a future for the Teatre Regina, a landmark venue for family theater.
And to make all these initiatives — and new venues — possible, the sector has also used the moment to call for greater resources and a sustained commitment to culture. Reaching 2% of public spending allocated to culture remains one of the sector's key demands. And it's amid this debate, between the successes of last season and the challenges still ahead, that Catalan theater is preparing this September to raise the curtain once again, caught between anticipation and nerves. It has done so, once more, with the gala Catalunya Aixeca el Teló, which this year celebrates its 25th edition.
Twenty-five years of raising the curtain
And if raising the curtain each September means kicking off a new season, this time Catalan theater used its opening gala to look back before starting over once again on a new season. The gala Catalunya Aixeca el Teló, held this past Monday at the Gran Teatre del Liceu to mark the start of the theater season and now in its 25th edition, turned the anniversary into a journey through the last twenty-five years of the Catalan stage.
Rather than focusing solely on the current moment of success and the numbers behind it, the gala chose to shine a light on the road that made it possible: the social and historical shifts, the shows and music that have marked generation after generation, but also the crises and hard times that tested the sector and, in one way or another, helped shape it into what it is this historic season.
A journey through twenty-five years of theater and galas was told through the story of Mont, a teacher who in 2001 dreams of becoming an actress. Across ten scenes, conceived as parts of one grand musical, her life unfolds alongside the world of the performing arts, living through historic moments such as the Universal Forum of Cultures, the recognition of same-sex marriage, the economic crisis, the 15-M movement, the October 1st referendum, and the pandemic.
This journey, under the artistic direction of Joan Maria Segura and with musical direction and arrangements by Xavier Mestres, unfolded through shows and songs that are themselves part of the memory of these twenty-five years — from the ensemble number "Money" from Cabaret, to pieces from Les Misérables, closing with a triumphant rendition of "Viva la Vida." A final song that looked both backward and forward at once, celebrating the past, present, and future of a Barcelona and Catalan stage that, twenty-five years on, continues to evolve and write its own history.
And now, after looking back — at last season and at twenty-five years of recent history — it's time to start again. The curtain rises once more on a season that arrives with high hopes of keeping pace with the records set before it, but also with challenges that go well beyond the numbers.