The mayor of Cáceres asks not to make a bottle in Womad although no measures will be enabled to avoid it

The bottle is a permanent travel companion of the Womad festival that transforms concerts into scenes of mass alcohol consumption and generates mountains of plastic and environmental noise beyond what happens on stage. The City Council will not enable measures against this practice, but the mayor has asked those attending this appointment not to do so. “We need to significantly reduce the bottle,” Luis Salaya indicated this morning during the presentation of the Womad 2022 program, which took place this morning, just five days before this appointment begins on the 5th. a call to “individual responsibility” since, in his opinion, this practice “harms the festival and worsens the experience, it is a good opportunity to change the attitude”. Despite this recommendation, there will only be controls to prevent access to the Plaza Mayor de Cáceres with glass and plugs, a measure that has been going on for years and is the only one that has been implemented in pursuit of a cleaner and more civic Womad.

Presentations like the one that took place this morning where a massive and normal Womad is predicted make us forget about it, but we are still in a pandemic and, although the obligation to wear masks in any area except health and transport has already been lifted, Salaya has also appealed to individual ethics to act with “responsibility and sensitivity” in the case of this element of protection.

The practice of the bottle is habitual in the Womad. /

TODAY

the poster

A total of 20 concerts will take place in the Plaza Mayor and Plaza de San Jorge from May 5 to 7, in addition to other activities such as workshops or the literary-musical meeting ‘World of Words’ or the parade that puts the culmination of the Appointment on the 8th. This year marks the 30th anniversary of this event and the Grand Theater has hosted the presentation of a poster that, as has been said, is “eclectic and feminist” and has a large presence of African artists.

It is a poster very attached to the spirit of Womad and in which, as in recent years, there are no names that are very recognizable by the general public, although the commitment to ethnic and world music is very firm and also for being a compass of interesting yet hidden artists. The Chilean artist Ana Tijoux and the Iranian Liraz stand out in this event. The Tarta Relena duo, with a curious mix between indie and folklore, is an interesting proposal. There are also artists from Extremadura, such as ‘The children with the red eyes’ or ‘Rui Díaz & La Banda Impossible’. What is missing this year is the stage in Santa María, a space organized by the Junta de Extremadura to promote artists from the region.

The presentation has flown over the delay in presenting the poster, something that has been attributed to bureaucratic issues and a more demanding legal framework than in recent times. Dania Dévora, Womad’s representative in Spain, has apologized for this but she has justified this delay by having had to face the organization “a necessary and safe bureaucratic process.” Silvia González, the director of the Gran Teatro has detailed the reasons for the delay in making themselves known to the artists who will fill the Old Part, where around 10,000 people a day tend to gather. Will this lack of information about the content of Womad affect a decrease in audience? Dévora has indicated that it will be “a Womad like always”, while Salaya considers that this circumstance “will not weigh down the tourist pull”.

The Minister of Culture, Nuria Flores and the President of the Provincial Council, Carlos Carlos, have also given their congratulations to this new Womad. The musician Peter Gabriel has also been, in some way, through a video in which he has shown his satisfaction with this new edition.