The Grec Festival of Barcelona is an international theatre, dance, music and circus festival. Over the course of its history, this long-standing event, which will take place for the 39th time in 2015, has become not only the major summer attraction in Barcelona, but also a reference on the European performing arts calendar.

The festival takes its name from its main venue: an open-air theatre (the Teatre Grec) built on Mount Montjuïc for the 1929 Universal Exhibition. At first, this “Greek Theatre” was the only venue used for festival productions, but, today, the Grec programme embraces many other theatres, cultural facilities and public spaces all over the city of Barcelona.

The Grec Festival is promoted by Barcelona City Council, but no other public administrations are involved; rather, the shows are organised and produced by a large number of theatres and promoters.

The festival pursues a two-fold mission: firstly, to stage the most outstanding works by Catalan artists and companies, providing them with support by producing their shows for performance at the festival; and, secondly, to present all the most interesting shows from Spain and the rest of the world every year.

Indeed, the Grec Festival is Catalonia’s main showcase for works produced abroad, and in recent years the organisers have been keen to internationalise the event even further, focusing on presenting the most innovative pieces from such countries as the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan and France.