Cinema attendance falls 35.5% since 2019 as live popular music hits record highs

Cinema attendance keeps falling

Cinema attendance in Spain fell further in 2025, according to the Anuario SGAE 2026 of performing arts, music and audiovisuals, which the Fundación SGAE presented on Thursday, 15 October 2026 in Madrid. Cinemas recorded 67.7 million spectators, 35.5% fewer than before the pandemic, according to ABC. Box office revenue dropped 24.4% from 2019, falling from 615.6 million euros to 465.4 million, while screenings declined 12.7%, per EL PAÍS. The average Spaniard made 1.37 cinema visits during the year, which ABC describes as one of the weakest results in the recent series. The decline has continued even after health restrictions ended, and it has affected every Spanish region.

Live music keeps climbing

Popular music concerts moved in the opposite direction. Spain held 129,352 concerts in 2025, 7.3% more than the previous year and 42% more than in 2019, with 28.4 million attendees, up 8.1% on 2024, according to El Confidencial. Counting macrofestivals, attendance reaches 36.96 million. Ticket revenue including macrofestivals reached 801.4 million euros, up 81.7% on 2019 according to EL PAÍS. The figures without macrofestivals differ between outlets: EL PAÍS gives 293.2 million euros, compared with 161.4 million in 2019, while ABC places the non-festival revenue near 350 million euros.

Recorded music and the cinema slump

Recorded music follows a similar path. Promusicae puts Spanish recorded-music revenue above 674 million euros, up 18.6% on 2024, with digital formats taking 89% of sales, mostly through streaming. Physical sales still reached more than 62 million euros, and vinyl sales rose almost 28% year on year, making up 69% of physical formats. On screen, the three top-grossing films in Spain in 2025 were Lilo & Stitch, Jurassic World: El renacer and Avatar: Fuego y ceniza. The top Spanish film was Padre no hay más que uno, in its fifth installment by Santiago Segura, while La bola negra had passed 23 million euros at the box office according to Rentrak.

Rubén Gutiérrez del Castillo, director general of the Fundación SGAE, explained the trend this way:

The growth was cut short by the pandemic, because we were recording a period of consolidation, small but stable.

He tied the decline in cinema to the rise of streaming platforms and changing consumption habits.

Regional divergence

In Cantabria, cinema admissions fell 5.7% to 813,627 in 2025, more than 49,000 fewer than a year earlier, and box office dropped 2.68% to 5.1 million euros. Over the same period, concerts rose from 906 to 1,081, a 19.3% increase, and concert revenue grew 21% to 3 million euros, though the region remains second from the bottom nationally on that measure. In the Balearic Islands, venues sold 1.8 million tickets, 2.7% of the national total, and box office reached 12.1 million euros, or 2.6%. Balearic residents made 1.47 cinema visits per person in the year, level with Catalonia and behind the Basque Country (1.48) and Madrid (1.98).

Performing arts and the yearbook

Nationally, performing arts staged more than 51,000 performances, passing 2019 levels for the first time, yet audiences remain below pre-pandemic numbers. In the Balearic Islands, 658 performances drew 85,914 spectators and 1.7 million euros, including 614 theatre performances, while 466 classical concerts drew 76,617 people. In Cantabria, performing arts supply and attendance fell 1.7% and revenue fell 1.5%. The report was presented at the Palacio Longoria in Madrid by SGAE president Antonio Onetti, alongside Juan José Solana, president of the Fundación SGAE, and Rubén Gutiérrez del Castillo. Solana described the yearbook, now in its 26th edition, as one of the sector's most stable and longest-running tools.