A good week to be in Barcelona, at least if you are a Formula 1 fan. While most of the world’s attention might have been focussed on the real race at the circuit in Montmelo on Sunday, the organisers made sure petrolheads could enjoy the atmosphere in the heart of Barcelona too. There was a Fan Village, located in Plaça Catalunya, and a ‘Road Show’ involved a special display through the streets of Barcelona, taking most of the Passeig de Gràcia. The event ran in the city centre between June 15-22, and attracted over 40,000 spectators.
Plaça Catalunya as Fan Festival
If you wanted to feed the pigeons in Plaça Catalunya last week (or just walk from one side of the square to other) you were out of luck, because the whole space was taken over by the F1 Fan Village.
Wizzing down Passeig de Gràcia (if you are in an F1 car)
Heavy police presence
Not everybody is happy with the event
Headaches for locals trying to get around
Such urban spectacles are becoming increasingly common in large cities around the world. Established F1 street circuits include Albert Park in Australia, Monaco, Baku City Circuit, Marina Bay Circuit in Singapore and the purpose built Jeddah Corniche Circuit in Saudi Arabia. Macau also has a Formula 3 Grand Prix in the city centre, and Tokyo has a Formula E event around the city streets.
The colonisation of public space by racing did not go unnoticed in Barcelona. Not only did race fans turn up for the pre-event activities in the city centre, but there were also plenty of demonstrators as well. Most focussed on the environmental issues of city-centre racing, but other were simply incensed at the literal occupation by racing. The streets around the city centre were cordoned off, and police were heavily in evidence. Traffic was severely disrupted for days as the F1 cars raced up and down Barcelona’s main thoroughfare.
All of this adds to the debate about the use of public space by events. In the past, much attention has been focussed on events taking over public parks. Research by Andrew Smith highlighted the privatisation and commercialisation of spaces in London’s Royal parks for the 2012 Olympic Games, for example. In London, the large expanses of parks means that only a part is usually occupied by events. But in Barcelona, where parks are few and small, the new wave of events has colonised entire parks, turning these into gated entry spaces, even for locals.
AMEBA Parkfest - the whole park.....
As with all such events, the use of public space, and other public resources, is usually justified with reference to externalities such as increased income or improved image. However, relatively few event organisers bother to do the research needed to back this up. One exception was the Zandvoort Grand Prix in the Netherlands, which commissioned research on visitor spending and local tolerance of the event from BUAS. This showed that locals were generally happy to put up with the noise and overcrowding for a couple of days, because the race benefitted local businesses and put Zandvoort on the map. After a couple of editions of the research, however, the race organisers decided they didn’t like the figures – which indicated less visitor spending than they wanted. So they simply stopped doing research. No data, no questions. Just like in Barcelona.
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