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na of the most evident consequences of COVID-19 has been the halt of cultural activity, which has caused a large number of micro-enterprises, SMEs, and entities in the sector, which depend on income largely linked to the annual cultural agenda, to face short-term liquidity difficulties. Given the situation, the ICF and the Department of Culture of the Generalitat de Catalunya, through the ICEC, promoted the ICF Cultura Liquiditat loans, a commission-free financing line aimed at companies in the sector affected by the pandemic.
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One of these companies has been the Cruïlla Festival, which this year reached its 15th anniversary, positioned as one of the reference music festivals of the summer season in Barcelona. Since moving to the city of Barcelona in 2008, the Cruïlla Festival has not stopped growing, reaching a record figure of 77,000 attendees in its last edition, almost 20,000 more than the previous year. The sanitary restrictions caused by COVID-19, however, made it impossible for the 2020 edition to be held with the characteristics planned by the organization, and made it even less possible to reach attendance figures like those of previous editions.
Given this situation, the festival organization decided to apply for a loan from the ICF through the ICF Cultura Liquiditat line to adapt the format, reducing capacities and limiting them to between 200 and 800 people in different spaces of the city, as well as assuming all pertinent sanitary requirements to ensure the health of workers, artists, and attendees. In this way, the Cruïlla XXS Festival was born. Parallel to the creation of this new proposal, Cruïlla Festival had to manage the return of money for season tickets and tickets from that part of the public who decided to do so.
The ICF, as Catalonia's public bank, continues to support the economic fabric to finance projects that allow building a sustainable future in which growth and innovation are the backbone of the economy and businesses.