Barcelona is increasingly becoming, by no doubt, one of the most important technological and creative poles in the world, and therefore is attracting more and more of developers, designers, producers, video makers, projections designers and, by the same time, the capitals and the investments necessary to realise their own creations.

Sonar Festival, for the third consecutive year, has decided to surf this trend its own way, dedicating a complete branch of the acclaimed Music annual meeting to the magic that Creativity and Technology are able to achieve together, pushing even further the already progressive approach that had been taken in the previous editions.

Sonar +D is not only a part of the festival, with his own Program of music and visual performances, but also a global gathering for everything related with enhancement of creativity through technology, an international conference designed to promote talent and business opportunities in the digital culture environment.

The conference will be divided into four areas – Exhibition, Congress, Networking and Live Performance – that will take up space within the brand new location of Montjuïc’s Hall 4, a spiral space that reflects the event’s open and interactive spirit.

This year the program has already seen the confirmation of some very interesting attendants such as Kickstarter, Vimeo, Pinterest, Littlebits and Arduino, that will be talking about their business models and potential growth, also providing workshop and master-classes with the aim of igniting inspiration and therefore generate new compelling ideas.

Alongside these top businesses, Sonar +D will also see the return of activities that have helped setting up the success of the former editions, such as the Start Up competition, opened to hundreds of new ideas; the Music Hack Day and the Music Technology Group, which this year will be focused in showcasing music making with wearable technologies; the Sonar Planta, a prize awarding competition, in collaboration with Sorigue’ Foundation, for the showcasing of a large art installation (winner to be announced on April 29th); the Atlántida Film Fest, an experiment of online film festival promoted by Filmin, Spain’s principal streaming platform for TV series and movies, alongside workshops dedicated to audio-visual industry professionals; plus workshops (Google Creative Lab and Barcelona Supercomputing Centre being the sweet spots in my opinion), and performances of artists of the calibre of Squarepusher and Chemical Brothers.

What we can see from the program is that Sonar +D is making a further step towards affirming itself as one of the main events for creativity and technology. It has, by any means, become a transversal and multidisciplinary event, gathering personalities and professionals from all around the world and creating a giant space for exchange and dialog for artists, developers and investors within the digital creativity spectrum.

It is not a surprise that this approach, and the success achieved in past years, has brought the festival to the attention of the institutions, claiming to position itself as a hub between the creative communities and technology industries in Catalonia and therefore becoming an essential part of Barcelona’s digital strategy. To this end, Sónar+D 2015 has signed collaboration agreements with the Barcelona City Council and the Generalitat Department of Culture’s ICEC (Catalan Institute of Culture Industries).

For more info about the event, head to the official website.