FESTIVALES AL PARQUE

Festivales Al Parque (Festivals in the Park) program was created as part of a public stategy intended to generate cultural transformations that would help recovery from a period of strong urban violence that hit the city in the early 1990s.

Festivals contributed in recovering the citizens’ appropriation of public spaces, reinforced identity and diversity, and today gather more than 600.000 participants every year.

The events are programmed in open spaces and outdoors, throughout the city’s parks, and favor both the strengthening of the artistic practices in different musical genres and the conditions for the exercise for cultural rights. The Festivals allow citizens from different social and economic conditions, ages and education levels, to congregate in the public parks and open air spaces to enjoy different musical expressions.

Since the first Rock al Parque festival in 1995, these open air free attendance concerts have also become a platform for local artists in Rock, Jazz, Salsa, Hip Hop, Opera and Colombian traditional music. The Festivals rely on a rigorous technical selection of local participating groups to guarantee a high level of artistry, and their programming includes international guests along with the local musicians.

Today, Rock in the Park has become the largest free Rock event in South America. The formative dimension of the Festivals took various directions: the creation of a positive image for the city, the strengthening of the sense of identity with the city, the public musical formation, the tolerance toward differences, the visibility and legitimacy of discrepant marginal expressions with the culture of the masses visible through the commercial communication media. Therefore, they are spaces where diversity, inclusion and multi-culturalism are validated, where citizens can interact, and can express themselves and their diverse forms of living in the city in relation to music.

Component Description:

Artistic Programming – Bogotano groups are selected through open competitions, national and international bands are invited to the event.

Academic Programming – Participating artists, researchers and celebrities of the music industry become involved, in each one of the programmed genres with the purpose of strengthening the technical and production levels of the national groups and audiences.

Entrepreneurshhip –  Festivals include conferences and information for participating musicians regarding circulation practices and possibilities. The Festival grounds include a Fair for exhibition and sales of products and services relaated to the artistic and cultural environment of the different genres. 

Internationalization – An effort to favor the creation of a collaboration between Bogotano bands with programmers of similar festivals in other cities and countries, through pitch sessions and business meetings.

Social Events – The festivals allow the national and international guests to know the city from a touristic perspective. Bars and other spaces for the circulation of the bands get involved in this initiative.

Line of Memory – Supports the publication of books, catalogues, documentaries, exhibitions, videos, postcards and the musical compilation as forms of creating social memory from these events.

IMAGE: Rock al Parque 2016