Festa al Cel
Salou, 18-19 September 2026
Airshow Debrief loves going off the beaten track, but with this review, ended up on the mobility scooter path. For years Festa al Cel was a fixture on the European airshow calendar, but it has seen a rocky decade. We discover the show at its new home in Salou.
Festa al Cel started out in 1991 as a model aircraft show. A year later, it held its first major event at the Barcelona seafront, until Spanish airport operator AENA decided the display area was too close to the airspace of Barcelona El Prat airport. The event moved to Mataro beach afterwards, north of Barcelona, then the airport of Lleida, which is well in-land and disappeared completely following the covid pandemic. In 2025, the event found a new home at Salou, over 100 kilometres south of Barcelona, and returned bigger and stronger in 2026.
Festa al Cel is part of Salou’s efforts to expand its tourist attraction range. Every year, millions are drawn to the resort town with the promise of a relaxing beach holiday, or excitement at the nearby Port Aventura and Ferrari Land theme parks. Salou is trying to add a variety of cultural events to diversify its portfolio and enhance its tourist appeal. The city itself is visually rather unattractive collection of resort hotels with a wide range of Irish and British pubs that seem to have been plucked away from a 1960s British seaside town, aimed at the thousands upon thousands of elderly British and Irish tourists lured by the Spanish sun, who probably saw genuine 1960s British seaside towns as they hit their midlife crisis.
Before and during the show, visitors could discover some of the participants or hunt for souvenirs on the seaside promenade, where an extensive selection of commercial aviation memorabilia shops and squadron tents were set up. Enthusiasts could also meet some of participating crews there, or sit in an F-18 cockpit simulator.
The show relied heavily on Spanish acts, though it did include some foreign acts. In particular the extensive involvement of Scandinavian Airshow and the Baltic Bees greatly added to the prestige of the event. In addition, demos of the Mossos d’Esquadra, Salvamenta Maritimo, Guardia Civil, Bombers de Cataluna and the Spanish army are certainly big draws for international visitors as you would be hard-pressed to find these outside the Spanish borders.
Add to that some local civilian acts from historic aircraft associations and flying clubs and you got yourself a very attractive airshow, topped off by some high-profile Spanish air force involvement with the parachute display team Papea, A400M and Typhoon, the latter accidently creating a rather loud climax on Sunday when it burst through the sound barrier.
The main crowd was divided across two beaches, split by the marina in the middle, which is where spotters, press and the TV crew live-broadcasting the event on Sunday were gathered. A Tv camera helicopter also got into the action on Sunday to provide spectacular aerial shots of the participants for the tv audience.
The main show was held on Sunday, running from 11:00 until 15:00, which is a common timing for Spanish airshows. On Saturday evening, the seafront came alive with the flying action kicking off non-stop from 18:00 until roughly quarter past nine. This resulted in some gorgeous warm light from the setting sun, and a spectacular pyro display by the Ragnarök display team of Scandinavian Airshow. Following a concert on the seaside promenade Jaime I, the action picked up again after 10M with a droneshow, the Polish Flying Dragons and Scandinavian Airshow’s LLP, using the Grumman Ag-Cat just before 11PM.
It is great to see Festa al Cel return to the airshow calendar. The organizer is certainly very ambitious to raise the show’s profile again and the support team, particularly the team welcoming press and spotters, make sure everyone returns with happy memories.
Let’s hope the show has a bright future ahead of it!
Thanks to Daniel Ventura-Gonzalez and Paul Johnson
