The Arrecife en Vivo festival is a beautiful extravagance of the state festival circuit. It is due to the uniqueness of its format: outdoors, using a parade as a means of pedestrian and festive transport to guide the public from one stage to another in the heart of the capital's marina.
It is also due to the diversity of its program, in which we can see artists with a great capacity to connect with the public and listen to lyrics that invite reflection on the socio-political context in which we live. The festival prioritizes attention to the diversity of styles, while remaining faithful to an indisputable rocker spirit.
In its eleven editions, the Concert Pointing Finger festival has managed to create a strong bond with the citizens of Lanzarote. A Lanzarote drummer, Buli Panés, leads the parade dressed as Elvis Presley. The island public makes the event its own, responding to its call, opining and debating about each step it takes.
Each year, 135 Lanzarote companies invoice services to the festival and more than 200 local professionals work in Arrecife en Vivo. Waiters who attend the bars, assembly operators, light and sound technicians, electricians, engineers who develop security plans, restaurateurs who prepare the catering, runners who take care of transportation, production technicians who schedule the arrival of the artists, photographers and a long etcetera of jobs necessary to raise one of the greatest examples of teamwork that exist.
Arrecife en Vivo also weaves a social fabric. It has collaborated with associations such as Adislan, El Cribo, Derecho y Justicia, Cáritas or Flora Acoge and dedicates a special affection to the island's musical quarry, working for years with the students and teachers of the Toñín Corujo School.
Through projects such as AEV Channel and AEV Training, the festival contributes to creating the necessary educational foundations for the island population to develop their creativity and artistic sensitivity and provides them with a training offer oriented to work in the cultural industry.
Behind its artistic programming and its way of doing things, a festival with soul can be seen. People doing things for people. People who get it right, make mistakes and correct them. The production company, with more than fifteen years of experience, has managed to design an event that institutions consider to be of general interest.
For four consecutive Fridays, Arrecife en Vivo becomes a magnet for a traveling community, of course, very particular: lovers of live music who are interested in local culture. In 2024, the festival brought together people from Mexico, Ireland, Italy, England, Scotland, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Alicante, Seville, Cuenca, Huelva, Toledo, Málaga, Valencia, Gran Canaria and Tenerife in the capital of Lanzarote.
Their presence translated into two weekends with 100% occupancy of accommodation places in the city and a considerable increase in the turnover of many businesses: restaurants, bars, cafes, hotels, taxis and shops in the city.
Beyond the economic impact it generates, the grace of the Arrecife festival is that it proposes a cultural and festive experience in the public space, managing to create an atmosphere difficult to describe, halfway between the concert hall and the carnival, mixing the local with the global, attracting families but also young people and especially adults.
Andy Cato, member of Groove Armada, expressed it this way last year at the Cruise Ship Pier, one of the stages of Arrecife en Vivo: “I think we live in an increasingly divided world and music is the only thing that has always united us. Bringing people together like this is a way to achieve a unifying energy and that is now more important than ever. I wish the UK institutions would do such amazing things as this.”
Due to its changing format, its idiosyncrasy and its interest in creating grassroots culture, accessible to anyone who comes to Arrecife, the festival has obtained two international recognitions in the Iberian Festival Awards (Best Festival in Spain of Small and Medium Format) and on March 15 it will compete alongside festivals such as Bilbao BBK Live to become the festival with the best cultural program in the country.
Whatever happens at that gala that will be held in the Portuguese Algarve, it is clear that Fridays, September 19 and 26, October 3 and 10, 2025 are already marked on the calendars of many people from the Canary Islands, the Peninsula and part of Europe.
In an increasingly large and homogeneous festival agenda, Arrecife en Vivo is the weird little brother that you like, the exception that works, a festival that was born to revitalize a city hit hard by the economic crisis and that has become a space where to build the soundtrack of our lives.
