Meteoro, a small independent live-music and cultural venue in Barcelona’s Poble-sec neighbourhood, has issued a public call for support as it struggles with mounting debts and the risk of eviction. The non-profit association, which opened in its current location in early 2018, has turned to GoFundMe to raise €20,000 to stabilise its finances and avoid shutting down.

The space, located on Passeig de Montjuïc, has become a key hub for the city’s underground and emerging scenes, hosting small and medium-format events ranging from electronic nights and live bands to exhibitions, screenings and workshops. Its team says that model has become increasingly difficult to sustain in Barcelona’s current cultural and economic climate.

According to the fundraising campaign, 2024 was “one of our worst years”, marked by a series of blows: complaints, fines, leaks, a temporary closure order from the city council and embargoes, including the seizure of €7,000 from a Covid-related subsidy. The situation, they add, did not improve in 2025.

“We’re still open by miracle, thanks to the help of many friends, but we have a lot of debts we need to start clearing,” the association explains in its appeal.

The money raised is earmarked primarily for overdue rent, described as the most urgent issue given the risk of being forced out of the premises. Additional funds would go towards paying suppliers, repaying loans that have kept the venue operating, and carrying out essential repairs after nearly eight years of activity. Priority works include the dancefloor, ceiling and bathrooms, which the association says can no longer be postponed.

Meteoro also highlights that part of its long-term problems stem from behaviour in the public space outside the venue. Noise, people drinking in the street and taking drinks outside are cited as the source of “90%” of its conflicts with neighbours and authorities. The association is asking regulars to cooperate by keeping the street quiet and avoiding outdoor drinking as a “totally free” way to support the project.

The campaign situates Meteoro’s difficulties within a broader transformation of Barcelona’s cultural landscape. It references a municipal urban plan presented in May that focuses on renovating or building large music facilities for audiences of 4,000 to 20,000 people, designed to attract major international tours. Meteoro’s statement laments that such strategies do not address the needs of small local collectives or independent artists.

Journalist and cultural manager Aïda Camprubí, co-director of the Barcelona Acció Musical (BAM) festival, has lent her voice to the campaign. In an accompanying text, she describes Meteoro as one of the small-format spaces that “shape identity and preserve the essence” of a city increasingly dominated by large structures geared towards tourism.

She notes that Meteoro has already survived a pandemic, fines and repeated inspections, and argues that its continued existence depends on the everyday involvement of those who use it: working, programming, drinking at the bar rather than in the street, playing, DJing and respecting neighbours’ rest.

Camprubí frames the venue’s struggle as a response to what she calls the “expat-isation” of Barcelona, in which small local circuits are squeezed by rising costs and a lack of institutional recognition. “We’ve seen too many spaces closing in recent months because they cannot cope with economic demands and the invisibility of their needs,” she writes, calling for attention and action at the local level.

As of late November, the GoFundMe campaign had surpassed €8,500, around 43% of its target, backed by hundreds of individual donations. Whether that support will be enough to secure Meteoro’s future remains uncertain, but the association insists that keeping such spaces alive is essential if Barcelona’s everyday cultural life is to continue beyond its growing landscape of large-scale venues and tourist-oriented attractions.

Barcelona’s Meteoro cultural association has launched a €20,000 crowdfunding campaign in a last-ditch effort to clear debts, pay back rent and carry out basic repairs, warning that the venue is “on the verge of closing”.