• Rubén Labarzana, the late night boss who revolutionized afterwork

The festival season arrives in Madrid and its promoters look at the stormy sky that spring is leaving in the region. Among them Rubén Labarzana, ideologist of the Pompä party and baptized in the sector as The king of the tardeo. The nickname has its reasons, because in its agenda are the tabletop saras that are working best in the capital in recent years. A niche, that of the copeo in that stretch between the after-dinner and the night, which in Madrid took time to curdle, after being the flag of many Spanish cities, such as Granada, Seville or Alicante. It was there, in the Levante, where this publicist from Vallecas (who mastered Naval Engineering) found the inspiration to successfully offer dance at siesta time.

His brand (Pompä) has taken strong roots in the Florida Retiro room, where on Saturday afternoons a senior audience, between 35 and 60 years old, dances to indie rhythms where there is no shortage of songs from other styles, in a kind of fun wedding dance with the atmosphere of the daytime jarana. The same hymns of Vetusta Morla or Viva Suecia sound as the Flying free, closing bakala. "It has nothing to do with the night, with a completely different audience," says Rubén, 36 years old and a luxury services business (in Ibiza) that he combines with the promotion of events.

The formula began to work and, ambitious, distributed afternoon parties in the great halls of the city (Teatro Barceló) until opening a Pompä sub-headquarters in the famous Lula nightclub on Gran Vía, recovering more purist origins as far as indie music is concerned. Now it faces the big leap: turning its flag into an open-air festival.

Image of the Florida Retiro track during a Pömpa.EM party

Next Saturday Pompä takes the auditorium of the Tierno Galván Park, next to the Planetarium, from five in the afternoon to one in the morning. First, despite his Real Madridism, Rubén prayed to Guardiola that there would not be another Champions League final on June 10 with the Whites in between, which would have been a lethal competition. Having overcome this risk, now he only has to fight against the weather (they give a good forecast) and... Rosalia, nothing more and nothing less. Because it turns out that the world music star is headlining next Saturday at Primavera Sound, the famous festival that lands in Madrid for the first time. Close to her will also be that night Calvin Harris, one of the DJs with more pull of the moment.

"I like the challenge. But the pace of entries is going well. I trust our Pompä community, it is always very faithful," says Labarzana of that magma of girls, boys, ladies and gentlemen, desperate fathers, divorced mothers who gather in Florida every Saturday afternoon to have some dances.

Sociological change

"There has been a social change, unusual in the generation of our parents, where from a certain age they stopped going to clubs. Now people want to go out and will go out for their whole lives, or as long as their health endures. The problem is that at night in Madrid there are no places for this type of profile of veteran people who are looking for more quality and do not mind paying in advance for an entrance. The afternoon is also better for them. It allows family conciliation," says Rubén, dressed as a sociologist. It is true that the explosion of the tardeo combines this eternal youth that he points out with the change in the ways of going out that the pandemic caused (long meals, after-dinner conversations, terrace...). Also that a good afternoon party is much more compatible with the intense tasks of parenting on Sunday than one at dawn.

To help at home, the cunning Labarzana proposes this Saturday morning at the Tierno Galván a children's preview, the Pompä Kid, where there will be no shortage of music groups for children as well as attractions for them, in a festival atmosphere with foodtrucks included. Then, from 17:00 p.m. it will be the turn of the elderly. The usual DJs of the indoor format will be joined by groups that will sing live the songs that are part of the usual tracklist of the Pompä universe, such as The Red Room, Varry Brava or Siloé. The comedian Joaquín Reyes will also appear on the plates, recovering a role he already played some time ago in the Ocho y Medio, an indie club of reference in Madrid.

  • Rosalie
  • Jose Felix Tezanos
  • Grenade
  • Vallecas
  • Sweden
  • Seville
  • Ibiza
  • Alicante
  • theatre

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