More than a hundred free concerts make up the musical program of La Mercè 2026, which from September 23 to 27 will turn the squares and streets of Barcelona into urban stages for a great international festival, with musical projects from some thirty countries. Música Mercè, BAM, and Acció Cultura Viva are the three pillars that shelter a program in which, once again, the most popular names, mostly local, gather at the concerts on Avinguda Maria Cristina and those on Bogatell beach. On the first stage, among others, Maria Jaume, Els Catarres, Els Amics de les Arts, and the former singer of La Oreja de Van Gogh, Leire Martínez, will perform; on the Poblenou stage, among others, Al·lèrgiques al Pol·len, Buhos, Miki Núñez, Svetlana, and La Pegatina will perform, who according to Gisela Sais, curator of Mercè Música, will offer a concert with "a large part of the repertoire in Catalan". Two concerts for these stages are yet to be announced: a "surprise artist" on Avinguda de Maria Cristina and a "group to be announced" on Bogatell beach.

TMB staff controlling access to stations on Metro Line 4 to avoid crowding on platforms and in corridors. Crowds of very young people checking their mobile maps at the Llacuna metro exit to find the shortest route to Bogatell beach and wondering whether to go around the Poblenou cemetery to the right or the left. Vendors selling unregulated beer who look like assistants for a cycling team. Police checkpoints searching for knives. Running around trying to stay close to the stage. Parents realizing they have no business being in the rites of passage into adolescence. Security officers who can't help but follow the rhythm of the music. The mayor of Barcelona, ​​Jaume Collboni, and people with more or less famous or powerful credentials moving around trays of food in the reserved area of ​​Estrella Damm next to the stage. Very young people checking the time to know when they'll have to leave in order to be on time for the concerts on Avenida Reina Cristina. Hungry journalists, who could be the grandparents of these same young people, are struggling to explain why a 21-year-old artist is capable of gathering a crowd on the beach on a humid night.

"Anyone can be Pussy Riot," read the screen as two representatives of the Russian collective, wearing their characteristic colorful balaclavas, filled the night with rage. On the first night of concerts during the Fiestas de la Mercè, Pussy Riot filled the Plaza de Catalunya with an audience that was initially mostly expectant and gradually became more and more involved in a stage and musical proposal that has been engaged in a direct fight against Vladimir Putin's government since 2011. The reaction was especially loud when it came to freedom. Below, in the audience, a banner demanded freedom for Vladimir Bolobolov, currently in pretrial detention in Russia.