La Mercé

You must be no doubt referring to La Mercé, one of the biggest festivals in Barcelona, with plenty of information about it on the internet.

Indeed, thanks Mikel.

La Mercè (roughly pronounced "la-mar-seh", stressing the last syllable) is celebrated at the end of September. Dates vary depending on the year but the festival occurs around Sep 24th, which is the actual date of Saint Mercè, the patroness of the City and for whom the festival is celebrated.

The website containing all the info you need is here: https://www.barcelona.cat/lamerce/en but the useful bit (the program) is not published until mid-september.

This year La Merce is September 22-25. I think it’s like a city-wide mega block-party celebrating Catalonian heritage and culture. The red, white, blue and yellow flags are already flying from balconies all around Barcelona!

Sorry for the misspelling. Yes it’s La Merce. Here it is 2 weeks before but there is no real scheduling info. We I’ll be there that weekend. Still hoping to tour Barcelona. Will it get in the way? Don’t know. Where will it be celebrated? I’m not sure. Will it be like Marti Gras in New Orleans? Looks like fun. I just hope it’s not a touring problem.
Thanks for your replies.

"Us presentem les primeres novetats de la Mercè '23. Tots els detalls de la programació es donaran a conèixer durant la primera quinzena de setembre."

We will have the details in the first two weeks of Sept, so very soon. la Mercè is not like Mardi Gras in New Orleans. We do our festivals differently here in Spain, it's much more safe and family friendly for one part, less emphasis on drinking and partying, more cultural events, live music, and traditional performances.

Barcelona is a large city, no event -no matter how big- even when several of them coincide on the same dates bogs down the city. It might be that on a specific time and place something is going on in the street and the flow gets slowed down for a while, but two streets away life goes on as usual.

We were there during the festival last year. We were in Spain for six weeks, and being in Barcelona during the festival was a highlight of the trip. My only advice is to confirm operating hours for the sites you plan to visit. We arrived at the MNAC in early afternoon, for example, and they were preparing to close for the day because of the festival.