After confirming last week the celebration of MUWI La Rioja Music Fest, the promoters have presented this Thursday the «limited edition» that will take place on the night of Friday 27th and Saturday 28th of August at Bodegas Franco Españolas as the only setting for the event. José Luis Pancorbo, promoter of the festival, has ensured that the launch of the event has a clear declaration of intent: “The normalization of the economic, social, cultural and tourist life of our city.”
The festival will feature Fuel Fandango (which will make a break in its adapted duo concert tour and “they come with all the artillery,” highlights the festival director, Rafa Bezares) and Arizona Baby as heads of a poster that complete emerging groups that Veintinuo and Calavento are already a reality, as well as Apartamentos Acapulto, Fizzy Soup and Riojan DJs Tangerine Sistas and Edu Ammu.
Recovering MUWI and adding it back to the calendar of the cultural and tourist agenda of Logroño is one of the objectives of the event organizers. For this reason, in just over a week a Limited Edition will begin, which has put to the test the coordination capacity of the public and private initiative to be able to celebrate with the maximum sanitary guarantees.
“Being here is a step forward in this normalization of the pandemic,” said Ramiro Gil, General Director of La Rioja Tourism. The rate of vaccination and the drop in the incidence of the virus has led to better sanitary conditions that have helped citizens to attend this event “it is a clear sign that we are overcoming the pandemic.”
Music helped a large part of the population to overcome confinement, which is why Gil has stated that “being able to see the artists live is great news. Something we have to celebrate. The general director underlines that he is “convinced that this edition will be as desired as it is special, assuming a source of joy and income for the tourism sector.”
This year the festival has a new main sponsor, Ibercaja, who despite the current situation has not hesitated to support culture and show a clear commitment to recover normality and return to habits that we had prior to the pandemic. The Ibercaja area director in La Rioja, César Aragón, has pointed out that they joined the project “because we saw that it integrated two elements that we understood to be fundamental in Riojan DNA. Culture and wine ».
The adaptation of the event has been forced to dispense with the open stages that it had in previous editions. Bodegas Franco Españolas, a space where all the events will take place, welcomes them “with pride. Even with a limited edition and paddling through thick and thin ”, says Borja Eguizábal, the general manager of the winery.
Those attending the event are clear that this event is a turning point in the recovery of social life, but especially for the economy. Eguizábal stressed that “wine tourism is a lever for the recovery of Logroño and La Rioja, helping sectors as affected as tourism, hotels, leisure, culture, and hotels.” “We have had very hard times, we deserve moments of enjoyment always with all the security measures”
MUWI is synonymous with celebrating, it is meeting people again but its format is not yet final. Its organizers work every day according to the sanitary measures provided by the Ministry of Health. «If the festival were today, it would be sitting. But we are prepared so that it can be sitting or standing. There is a lot of space and we are expanding the surface in Franco Españolas with the hope that it will be the closest thing to the 2019 edition, ”highlighted Pancorbo.
But it will have two separate areas, one for the inn and the other for shows, so that consumption is possible. Pancorbo has lamented “the demands by which culture is surrounded. These are well above those that are asked of any bar, bus, or social activity today or three months ago in Spain. Finally he added that “despite everything MUWI next weekend will be the safest space in all of La Rioja.”
