Forum visitors below expectations

17 May 2004

BARCELONA – Nearly 110,000 people visited the Forum 2004 festival in its first week, organisers claimed Monday.

Oleguer Sarsanedas, spokesman for the five-month cultural festival, admitted that visitor numbers were below their initial expectations.

But he said the figure was “within the forecasts” of the organisers, who aim to attract five million visitors during the 141-day festival. 

The past weekend saw the highest number of visitors so far, probably because of the good weather which Barcelona enjoyed.

It was in contrast to the heavy rain which spoilt the first few days of the festival last week and forced organisers to cancel some outdoor events. 

Sarsanedas said 950,159 tickets had been sold and 1.8 million people had passed through the doors at the Forum site since it started on 8 May.

Of these, 83,577 were sold last weekend alone, which Sarsanedas claimed made organisers believe they would meet their visitor target.

They hoped that visitor numbers would rise in the next few weeks.

But in order to attract more people, Forum organisers had already responded to complaints and allowed people  to bring food and drink into the Forum site.

Visitors could also come in and out of the site on same-day tickets.

Sarsanedas claimed visitors had risen by 10 percent as a result of these changes.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news