Isla Bonita Love Festival

Some festivals use the word “love” because it looks good on a wristband. On La Palma, the idea was taken rather more seriously. Isla Bonita Love Festival began in 2016 by mixing music, fashion, gastronomy, local economic promotion and an explicit programme devoted to equality and LGBTQ+ rights. The proportions have changed over the years, but the central idea has remained remarkably stable: for several days, turn the island into a place where entertainment and social advocacy can occupy the same programme without either pretending the other is not there.

The inaugural edition ran from 28 to 31 July 2016 across several locations on La Palma. Promoted by the island council through its public company Sodepal, it arrived with unusually broad ambitions for a first-year event. There were discussions around LGBTQ+ rights, fashion and design showcases, food, commerce and live performances. Nalaya Brown was among the musical attractions, while the wider programme generated tens of thousands of visits across its different activities. From the beginning, “festival” meant considerably more than one concert. Music was the most visible component, but cultural visibility and economic activity were built into the project.

The second edition in 2017 dramatically raised the musical scale. Puerto de Tazacorte hosted a major concert featuring Miguel Bosé, Amaral, La Oreja de Van Gogh, Morat, Sweet California, Carlos Jean and Brian Cross. That lineup established a formula the event would repeatedly revisit: Spanish pop, Latin music, accessible rock and electronic sounds could coexist without a strict genre policy. What connected them was not musical purity but broad appeal and the role of the concert as the celebratory finale to a wider week built around diversity and inclusion.

By 2018, Puerto de Tazacorte had become the festival’s defining musical setting. Maná led a night attended by around 15,000 people, joined by Sebastián Yatra, Inna, Sidecars, Soraya and Juicy M. The following year brought Mónica Naranjo, Fangoria, Carlos Rivera, Pablo López, Prince Royce, Agoney and Brian Cross. Those two editions crystallised the festival’s unusual identity. During the day and throughout the social programme, discussions could focus on equality, visibility and rights; at night, the main stage could jump from Latin rock to pop, bachata and dance music without apology.

The pandemic disrupted that model but did not stop the wider project. In 2020, social and cultural activities continued even though the traditional mass concert could not operate normally. In 2021 music returned in a reduced format through a performance by Rozalén while LGBTQ+ programming remained active. That period revealed something important about Isla Bonita Love Festival: the giant concert is its most visible showcase, but the event’s identity is not entirely dependent on thousands of people standing in front of one stage.

Full-scale music returned in 2022. Alejandro Sanz, Vanesa Martín, Pignoise, Edurne, Bombai and Swedish duo Rebecca & Fiona filled the programme at Puerto de Tazacorte. The festival continued rebuilding momentum in 2023, then produced one of its most ambitious nights in 2024 with Ricky Martin and Martin Garrix, supported by Chanel, Ptazeta, St. Pedro, Kingdom and local talent. Pop superstar and global EDM headliner may look like an unlikely pairing, but stylistic inconsistency has never troubled the Love Festival very much. Its audience is deliberately wider than one musical tribe.

The Social Week has meanwhile developed into something far more substantial than a few side events. Talks, legal forums, activist meetings, film, education programmes, Pride celebrations and discussions involving trans, intersex, non-binary and migrant experiences have all appeared over different years. In 2024, LOS40 Canarias recognised the event as the best music festival in the Canary Islands, while the organisers continued to present diversity as the project’s fundamental purpose. In 2025, the Social Week remained active with Melody and major Pride participation, while Lustral Fest was officially connected to the brand as a special edition coinciding with La Palma’s major Bajada de la Virgen celebrations.

The tenth-anniversary programme in 2026 even changed the familiar summer rhythm. Instead of one July mega-concert, the main music events were split across two Saturdays in September. Isabel Pantoja marked fifty years of career on September 12 with the Las Palmas Symphony Orchestra. A week later, Laura Pausini, Nathy Peluso and Armana Khan brought a completely different musical character to the same Puerto de Tazacorte stage. Between those dates, the Social Week focused on human rights, diversity and migration and produced the La Palma Declaration 2026.

A decade after its first edition, Isla Bonita Love Festival remains unusually difficult to describe with one conventional festival label. It is part concert series, part Pride celebration, part social project, part tourism event and part island showcase. The headliners can change dramatically and even the dates are flexible, but the organising principle remains simple. The festival is built around the freedom to be visible, to love openly and to share a public space without fitting neatly into somebody else’s category. For an event whose best-known slogan is essentially love without labels, refusing to fit neatly into a label of its own seems entirely appropriate.