Sónar 2025 Official Recap and Guide

Each June, Barcelona becomes one of the liveliest electronic music cities of the world as DJs, labels, and industry types from up-and-coming underground labels to headliner-heavy festivals descend upon the Catalan capital. Sónar 2025 was no different and certainly one to remember!

Now in its 32^nd year, Sónar has always been regarded as an avant-garde cultural mainstay focusing on electronic music, technology, and the dance music community at large. Over the years the festival has gone through many iterations with earlier editions looking more like renegade warehouse parties and more recent years being more commercialized as you’d expect from a large-scale festival yet still curated for cutting-edge electronic music and arts enthusiasts.

The festival now has international editions across the world, and as anyone who has attended Sónar Barcelona knows, there is a tradition of “Off Sónar” parties. These events, once full of underground pop ups and “secret” sets in stellar locations (looking at you Richie Hawtin @ La Boquería or Luciano @ Estació França) have now become full-blown festivals themselves, some even officially associated with the Sónar brand across multiple locations in Barcelona.

Sónar itself, as the original main event, is still the crown jewel and you can find all about the 2025 edition and what to expect in 2026 below.

Did you attend Sónar 2025 in Barcelona? Thinking of going to the 2026 edition? Welcome to by Sónar 2025 Official Recap and Guide, designed to give you a view on what to expect in 2026, what went well in 2025, and what could be improved upon. 

Enough with the preamble. Check out by Sónar 2025 official recap and guide below!

THIS YEAR’S CONTROVERSY

I would be amiss to not address the very public controversy intertwined with this year’s edition of Sónar, involving parent company Superstruct, the owner of many major European festivals, being acquired by private-equity investment firm KKR. Nearly 100 artists signed an open letter urging the festival to distance itself from KKR, which states that “KKR holds significant investments in companies arming and supporting Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza. This association directly contradicts the ethical values that many artists and audiences hold.” (source: DJMag)

There were various artist cancellations in the leadup to Sónar 2025 in opposition to Sónar’s ties, by way of parent company Superstruct, to KKR. Many festivalgoers…