Sónar+D? Isn’t that the same thing as the Sónar music festival?

Well, not entirely.  While the two festivals run parallel to one another, take place in the same location, and have a similar name, the focus of each festival is very different.  While Sónar primarily focuses on partying to electronic music, Sónar+D is an international conference that offers an interactive look on cutting-edge technology.  At Sónar+D, engineers, inventors, and everyone in between shares their new and upcoming technology to the general public.

Ever since the early years of Sónar, it has been considered as more than just a music festival.  In its first year it already launched several activities alongside the concerts.  These technological showcases started out as SónarPro, with a record fair, cinema with video and art projections, and the art instillations of SónarMàtica.  Since 2013 event, all the more technological activities have taken place under the Sónar+D umbrella.

You might be thinking at this point “well, this sounds great and all, but how can it compare to the music of Sónar?”  Sónar+D isn’t just your ordinary technology conference.  As one of the frontier showings of technology in Barcelona, the event offers much more than just walking around and looking at various booths.  Due to the fact that last year had 3,900 professionals, 2,000 participating companies, and over 60 visiting countries, Sónar has expanded its event into 4 sections: congress, exhibition, live performance, and networking.

The congress section of Sónar+D is split up into 5 subsections: talks, demos, workshops, music hack day, and the start-up competition.  In the conferences section, creators and industry leaders talk about the digital ecosystem, future technology and impending issues in our digital world.  For demos, technology companies take the stage in order to show you their projects and products.  Workshops are much more hands-on for viewers, as the leading institutions and companies help you develop your digital skills and creative techniques.  Watch the music hack day as 100+ hackers from around the globe have 24 hours to conceptualize, create and present new technologies that will shape the future of digital media.  Finally, the start-up competition features 10 start-up companies related to technology, creativity or music presenting their products to a panel of judges, who will then decide the three winners of the competition.

All of these activities already, and we haven’t even gotten to the second section: exhibition!  The exhibition portion of Sónar+D includes: Realities+D, MarketLab, and the Start-up Marketplace.  Realities+D is a new space in Sónar+D for viewing the Virtual Reality aspects of cutting-edge technology. With dozens of films, music videos, and interactive experiences, you can’t miss this Virtual Reality showing full of adventures and experiences.  The MarketLab can be seen as one of the central parts of Sónar+D, where creators of this year’s most innovative technology present their projects to the participants of Sónar, allowing you to get a closer work into what goes on in each of these technological companies and how these products are made.  The last part of exhibition is the Start-up Marketplace where several start-up companies will be available for the public to talk to and view their proposals for the technology of tomorrow.  The exhibition section is definitely one of the more interactive parts of Sónar+D, and allows you to get a piece of the companies and product of tomorrow.

The third section of Sónar+D is live performance, which in turn is split up into: SonarPLANTA, installations, and tech shows.  SonarPLANTA is the product of Sónar and the Sorigué Foundation, and has the purpose of promoting research in creative languages for technology and media art.  Installations is more focused on the artistic aspects of digital media, with uses of sound, visuals and interaction to create an artistic showcase.  The tech shows of Sónar+D use both the Sónar musical line-up as well as other artists to explore how the technology presented in Sónar+D can be used in the musical setting.

The last but certainly not least section of Sónar+D is the networking aspect.  Aimed towards all of you technology fanatics and digital creators out there, the networking section allows the opportunity to meet some of the people working in these companies in various opportunities such as: meet the expert, meet the investor, the job market place, digital & media, a meet & drink, and a music production meet-up.

“Well, this certainly seems like a ton of activities and things to see and do, how can I be a part of it?”  There are two options for people interested in seeing Sónar+D.  The first option is buying a SonarPass, which gets you into all of the Sónar concerts as well as a large portion of the Sónar+D events.  However, keep in mind that some of these events will be closed to you, unless you purchase the Delegate Pass (on the Sónar+D website).  If you’re not sure which one you’d rather choose, take a look at the website to see which events have limited access.