Sónar begins in Barcelona as a festival focused on “advanced music” (new electronic sounds) and multimedia art. From the start it is split into Sónar by Day (cultural venues) and Sónar by Night (club setting), setting a model that links concerts, DJs, and art/technology programming in one event.
In the mid-1990s, Sónar’s day-and-night structure continues and the festival quickly grows beyond its first-year scale. The expanding audience and programming show that electronic music can draw large crowds while also fitting into museum and cultural-institution settings.
A major shift arrives when Sónar by Night relocates to the Mar Bella sports pavilion, increasing capacity. This change supports bigger audiences and helps push the festival toward a more international scale of bookings and production.
By the end of the 1990s, Sónar has grown into a much larger event, with rapidly rising visitor numbers reported for 1997–2000. The scale-up reinforces Sónar’s identity as both a forward-looking music festival and a hub for media-art activity around the shows.
As crowds and logistics become more demanding, the night program increasingly relies on large fairground-style venues rather than smaller nightlife spaces. This transition signals a new era: the festival can host bigger productions while keeping the daytime program connected to Barcelona’s cultural institutions.
Coverage of Sónar 2002 describes a dense schedule combining live sets, DJs, film screenings, and exhibitions—showing how the festival was becoming more than a concert series. The use of multiple daytime venues also reflects the festival’s continuing ties to Barcelona’s arts infrastructure.
For Sónar’s 10th edition, press coverage highlights Björk as a key headliner, reflecting the festival’s growing mainstream visibility alongside its experimental roots. The reporting also notes that the night program again uses a large industrial/fairground setting in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat.
After Björk’s appearance, coverage describes the night venue as an “enormous hangar” with a very large audience, capturing how Sónar by Night had become a mass event. This moment illustrates the festival’s balancing act: hosting global stars while keeping room for riskier electronic and media-art programming elsewhere in the schedule.
The official 2004 edition page lists Sónar de Día at CCCB and Sónar de Noche at Fira Gran Via (M2) in L’Hospitalet, making the split-venue model explicit. This setup reflects how the festival’s growth required larger, purpose-built spaces for nighttime crowds while keeping daytime activities in central cultural locations.
In 2004, MACBA’s program notes show the museum directly participating in Sónar, hosting SonarMàtica (media-art exhibition programming) and SonarComplex (a stage focused on more experimental sounds). This highlights Sónar’s institutional partnerships and its effort to present electronic music as part of contemporary culture, not only nightlife.
The June 2004 festival dates mark the end point of Sónar’s first decade: a shift from a small Barcelona event into a large, two-venue institution with strong museum ties and growing international reach. By this stage, Sónar has established the core pattern it will build on in later years—big nighttime productions, daytime cultural programming, and a visible focus on creativity and technology.
By 2004, Sónar’s identity is strong enough to travel: SonarSound-branded editions are promoted outside Spain, including events in Tokyo and São Paulo. This internationalization extends the festival’s Barcelona model—electronic music plus multimedia arts—into a wider network.
Sonar Festival: Barcelona Electronic Music and Media Arts (1994–2004)