Barcelona Opportunity Week

The second edition of the Barcelona Opportunity Week, until 5 February, is seeing 20% more restaurants, hotels, markets, florists’ and cultural venues joining in and offering discounts. This year’s initiative includes offers on flights to visit the city, although a good many of the discounts are aimed at Barcelona’s own residents.

Michelin-starred restaurants with 35-euro menus, bouquets of flowers for 11 euros, half-price theatre tickets and special rates at hotels are just some of the offers in Barcelona Opportunity Week.

Last year more than 15.000 people took part in this week of discounts, there were 600 overnight stays and over 20.000 euros were collected through charity contributions.

Barcelona Children’s Festival

The Children’s Festival has been entertaining kids since 1963. This year is no exception, with the festival boasting more than one hundred and fifty different activities of all kinds at the Montjuïc exhibition venue.

One of the main features this year is sport, with a recreation of the Olympic Stadium and the presence of some of Barça‘s footballers. Some of the other attractions include go-karts, ponies, traditional games, video games, concerts, magic shows and a visit from some of the Sesame Street characters from Port Aventura.

Take part in this unforgettable experience; in the numerous sporting, recreational and educational activities being organized at the Children’s Festival, a fabulous fiesta where fun is guaranteed. The best way to teach values ​​such as creativity, solidarity, respect for diversity and the environment. It also promotes the sport and the Mediterranean food. Here you can participate in interactive science activities, recycling or responsible consumption, road safety circuits, workshops on how to care for pets, crafts and drawing competitions.

You can find more information at Festival Website.

Solidarity Event in support of Children with Heart Disease

If you’d like to give a helping hand to children with heart disease, why not go to Tibidabo this Saturday?

For the eighth consecutive year, the amusement park will be playing host to an event entitled: ‘El cor ens demana festa’ [Hearts call out for a party] in support of children with heart problems. It is organised by the Catalan Aid for Children with Heart Disease Association (AACIC) in collaboration with Barcelona City Council.

From noon on there will be games and workshops organised at various points in the park, with performances and surprises planned for the main event.

So visitors can collaborate with the association, a scarf has been designed that can be purchased for 6€ at the different park entrances on the day. Scarves will give free admission to Tibidabo for every child under the age of 16.

Children over the age of 16 who present the scarf at the ticket offices can buy entrance tickets for every attraction and show in the park for 18.20€. Without the discount admission is 25.20€.

Parc d’Atraccions del Tibidabo -> Pl Tibidabo, 3 | Sarrià-Sant Gervasi

Joan Miró: The ladder of escape

Renowned as one of the greatest Surrealist painters, filling his paintings with luxuriant colour, Joan Miró worked in a rich variety of styles. This is a rare opportunity to enjoy more than 150 paintings, drawings, sculptures and prints from moments across the six decades of his extraordinary career. This exhibition is co-organised by Tate Modern and Fundació Joan Miró.

The exhibition also traces an anxious and politically engaged side to Miró’s work that reflects his passionate response to one of the most turbulent periods in European history. Working in Barcelona and Paris, Miró tracked the mood of the Spanish Civil War and the first months of the Second World War in France. It also shows that, behind the engaging innocence of his imagery, lies a profound concern for humanity and a sense of personal and Catalan national identity. Extraordinary works from different moments of his career celebrate his roots in his native Catalonia.

Fundació Joan Miró is located at Montjuic, accesible by Funicular from Parallel station, just in front of Hotel Barcelona Universal. You can reach Fundació Joan Miró also from Plaza Espanya, by bus line 50, stopping next to B-Hotel.

More information can be found at Fundació Joan Miró website.

Sitges 2011: International Fantasy Film Festival

A grand total of 270 films make up the festival, which this year is aiming to boost its section structure, which has helped to enable every type of audience to find their own space. Spaces that are opening to family audiences this year with the Sitges Family seal.

One of its most popular side-activities, The Jack Daniel’s SITGES Zombie Walk 2011 will be held on October 14th, beginning at 20:30h at the Miramar Building. Following the Zombie Walk there will be a free night party on the beach.

SITGES International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia is the number one fantasy film festival in the world and represents, at the same time, the cultural expression with the most media impact in Catalonia. With a solid experience, the Sitges Festival is a stimulating universe of encounters, exhibitions, presentations and screenings of fantasy films from all over the world.

Born in 1968 as the 1st International Week of Fantasy and Horror Movies, today the Festival is an essential rendezvous for movie lovers and audiences eager to come into contact with new tendencies and technologies applied to film and the audiovisual world.

The whitest party: Sensation Barcelona

After a spectacular world premiere with an audience of 40,000 in Amsterdam in July, the new edition is going to fill the Palau Sant Jordi with people dressed in white and ready to dance to this new festival concept.

On the 8th of October 2011, Sensation will make its return to Barcelona. The venue, Palau Sant Jordi, will be transformed into Innerspace, making it the second city to host Sensation’s latest theme after the premiere in the Amsterdam Arena.

Sensation started in Amsterdam in the year 2000. Since then, over 1,5 million visitors in seventeen countries have experienced what is arguably the world’s most spectacular dance and music phenomenon. Each year, Sensation tours the globe with a completely new show. Consistently taking the acclaimed theme ‘be part of the night, dress in white’ to new heights, Sensation’s aim is to bring a positive message to a growing global audience.

Barcelona will be dressing up in white with Sensation Innerspace, a new, exclusive event dedicated to dance music. Wally López, Sharam, Fedde Le Grand and Mr White are just some of the artists who will be bringing Barcelona the very best in electronic music at the moment. Máxima FM, the media partner for Sensation Barcelona, will broadcast the event.

Allocation near Palau Sant Jordi can be found at B-Hotel and Hotel Barcelona Universal.

International business meetings at H1898 with Axiom Groupe

Axiom Groupe, leader in international business meetings, production of conferences and communication and delivering business intelligence and strategic information has chosen again Hotel 1898 in Barcelona for its events, on September 15th & 16th.

The first event will verse about Controlling & Reporting Management, with speakers from Lafarge, Statoil, Shell and FIAT among many other international companies. Download here the detailed information.

Also in September is coming the 4th Edition of the Shared Services Conference, with innovative back office strategies to lower total business operating cost. Ajuntament de Barcelona will join this event with a cocktail. Download here the detailed information.

Hotel 1898 in Las Ramblas, in the center of Barcelona. Hotel 1898 is the only offering Spa and 2 swimming pools all year open. A hotel where luxury and small pleasures will take you to the 19th century and the Spanish colonies in Cuba and the Philippines.

Barcelona Fashion Showcase

The city’s main fashion events coincide once again. The Brandery fashion show, which takes place from 13 to 15 July, features an area open to the general public among its new features. The 080 Barcelona Fashion catwalk, from 12 to 15 July, is being held at historical site of the Barcelona University, while the ModaFad parade and market will be on from 14 to 15 July.

While The Brandery, an urban fashion fair designed to show off the latest trends from the big brands, is organising a competition for new talent, the 080 Barcelona Fashion catwalk, an indie fashion platform, is letting in big names.

The Brandery is the new hotspot of urban fashion, a hub of trends, design, music, creativity and business. Exhibitions, catwalk shows, live music… all under the same roof which, for the first time this year, will have a new sector open to the general public: The Brandtown Fashion Xperience, which will coexist with the traditional The Brandery trade show.Such apparent contradictions share the same spirit, that of putting Barcelona on the fashion map, publicising successful businesses and introducing up-and-coming designers.

Creativity and innovation are the concepts that inspire 080 Barcelona Fashion, an initiative driven by the Catalan Government, as an open, plural multidisciplinary, international fashion platform.

This July at least sees these two events coinciding with the ModaFad events and activities once again to provide a highly unique fashion week. And B-Hotel features Fitting Room, an event where design, fashion and arts come together.

The ModaFAD activity consists of the international showing of emerging fashion designers to boost the interdisciplinary, drive the concept of the designer and promoted, and encourage the relationship between the design schools, the young designers, the specialized modes of communication, and the industry.

Detailed information can be found on each event website:

• The Brandery
• 080 Barcelona Fashion
• ModaFAD
• Fitting Room at B-Hotel

SonarKids: Creative Music & Experiences for children

After the success of the last two events, the 3rd SonarKids on Sunday 19 June isthe ideal finishing touch to Sónar 2011 to enjoy with all the family. SonarKids has a great deal of activities and creative experiences designed for parents and children to have fun and learn about different artistic disciplines by playing in a new and original way.

SonarKids presents a musical line-up fulll of top drawer shows, with performances by the Portuguese group Buraka Som Sistema, the renowned British dj and BBC Radio 1 presenter Gilles Peterson, the kiddie pop group Papa Topo, the indie pop group Polock, the stories sung by Barbara i Els Morenos, DJ Amarelo and the wizardry on the decks of the Pioneer Dj Kids.

The fun characters of Pintatelotu are the stars of the new SonarKids image. Pintatelotu offers children the opportunity to have fun and learn while they are playing and colouring in their gallery of characters. Are they monsters? aliens? animals?

More inf@: SonarKids website

German Film Week in Barcelona

From june 6th to 9th, the Comèdia Cinema at Passeig de Gràcia, next to our historical Hotel Granvia, will be the venue for German Film Week, as the closing act for the German-Spain exchange event (being held on 4 and 5 June) which will bring a selection of five films from the 13th Madrid German Film Festival.

Among the films being screened we will be able to see Schlafkrankheit [Sleeping Sickness] by Ulrich Kölher, winner of the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin Film Festival, and the latest film by Chris Kraus, Poll. Kraus will also be in attendance at the festival, holding a post-film discussion.

Making up the rest of the programme we have historical films, films on contemporary issues and films set both inside and outside of Germany. Organised by the Goethe Institut Barcelona, this activity is one of the German Week in Barcelona, starting on June 3rd, where Open Air Cinema and performances of dance, live music and light installations, discussions, and stands on central issues of our future, children’s theater and culinary products from Germany will be shown. For three days, Passeig de Lluis Companys in Barcelona, becomes a journey of stands, stages and tents.

More inf@: Goethe Institut Barcelona.

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