Castells have been on Unesco’s intangible cultural heritage list since 2010, and Barcelona has eight colles building them. This city is not castells country by origin, not remotely, and even so you can watch a tower go up here on an ordinary Wednesday in February without paying anything.
Can you see human towers in Barcelona outside La Mercè? Yes. Barcelona has eight colles castelleres and their sessions are spread across neighbourhood street festivals all year. On top of that, teams like the Castellers de la Vila de Gràcia rehearse midweek at their premises on Carrer de l’Alzina 7, free to walk into and with no experience needed.
That last part is what almost nobody uses. Everyone waits for La Mercè, turns up in Plaça de Sant Jaume on the main day, sees nothing because they arrived late, and leaves thinking castells are a once-a-year thing. The heavy season runs from late August to early November and holds four dates worth travelling for, but the best place to work out what is actually happening up there is not a packed square.
The eight Barcelona colles, and why the first one only started in 1969
Barcelona has eight active colles castelleres according to the City Council, and most of them are younger than the Olympic Games.
The Castellers de Barcelona are the oldest in the city and the one that matters most in the history of the modern castells movement: founded in 1969, they were the first colla created outside the traditional territory, beyond the Camp de Tarragona and the Penedès. The founding act was seven people raising a pilar on 8 June 1969 in El Vendrell, at the unveiling of the first phase of Josep Cañas’s Monument als Castellers. They wear red. And one detail explains a lot about how the castells world works today: they were founded as a fully amateur team at a time when people were still being paid to build towers.
The rest arrived in waves: Castellers de Sants in 1993, Castellers de la Vila de Gràcia in 1997, Castellers del Poble Sec in 1999, Castellers de la Sagrada Família in 2002 and the Colla Castellera Jove de Barcelona in 2010. The Castellers de Sarrià and the Colla Castellera de l’Esquerra de l’Eixample complete the map. Eight neighbourhoods, eight shirt colours, and a calendar that touches nearly every street festival in the city, from the Gràcia one in August I covered in the August guide to Barceloneta at the end of September.
The Wednesday rehearsal, how to watch without waiting for a festival
Rehearsals are open, free, and far better than a diada if what you want is to understand the tower.
The Castellers de la Vila de Gràcia train on Wednesdays and Fridays at Can Musons, their premises at Carrer de l’Alzina 7 in Gràcia, and their site puts it plainly: you can come and build castells with them having never done it before. No ticket, no box office, no membership. They publish the exact time themselves, so check cvg.cat or write to them before turning up, because it shifts with the season and with whatever they are working towards.
What you see there is a different thing from the square. At a rehearsal the pinya goes up several times in a row, gets corrected, comes apart and starts again. You can hear the cap de colla calling instructions. You see how each person is placed by height and weight, and why the children climb in helmets. At a diada you only get the finished result, from thirty metres back, in a crowd. At a rehearsal you are two metres from the tronc. It is one of the strangest and most genuinely free evening plans this city has, in the spirit of the facts that explain Barcelona.
The two Mercè castells days, and how they differ
La Mercè holds two separate sessions, not one, and most visitors only ever hear about the first.
Thursday 24 September at midday, in Plaça de Sant Jaume, belongs to the local Barcelona colles: it is the home session, the eight city teams, and it falls on the festival’s main day, which is also a local public holiday. Sunday 27 brings the Mercè Històrica, with guest colles from outside. The standard changes, the crowd changes and the feel of the square changes, so anyone who can only attend one should pick deliberately rather than by accident.
Both are free and outdoors. Both share the same problem: Plaça de Sant Jaume is small and fills long before the stated hour. I go with a lot of margin, stand along a side rather than at the back, and accept that I will see the top half of the tower and no more. The rest of the festival is broken down in my Mercè guide, and how the whole month falls, in what to do in September.
Two of those four happen in Barcelona. The other two need a train ticket.
Sant Fèlix, the square where the biggest towers go up
On 30 August, in the Plaça de la Vila in Vilafranca del Penedès, comes the most important date in the castells calendar, and there is no argument about it.
It is the central day of Vilafranca’s street festival and it puts the four best colles in the country in the same square: the Castellers de Vilafranca, who open, the Colla Joves Xiquets de Valls second, the Colla Vella dels Xiquets de Valls third and the Colla Jove Xiquets de Tarragona, who close. The running order is drawn and announced months in advance, and it shapes the entire tactical day, because nobody wants to show their best tower before a rival does.
Two things to know if you go. First, the square fills in a way nothing in Barcelona prepares you for, so you need to be there very early. Second, Vilafranca is under an hour by train from Sants, which makes it a perfectly reasonable day trip of the kind I describe in villages within a day of the city. In 2026 it lands on a Sunday, which is the best thing that could have happened to it.
The Tarragona competition, the only ticketed date
Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 October 2026 bring the Concurs de Castells de Tarragona, at the Tarraco Arena Plaça, and this year it is on.
The competition runs every two years, so it only comes round in alternate years, and 2026 is the 30th edition of a contest founded in 1932 at the initiative of the cellist Pau Casals. It is held inside a covered former bullring, with an afternoon session on the Saturday and a morning one on the Sunday, and it is the only major castells event watched seated, under a roof and with a paid ticket.
That format changes everything. At a square session you stand, pressed in, seeing whatever the people in front allow; at the Concurs you get a numbered seat, a high angle and several straight hours of top-level towers, one after another. It is the best possible introduction if you are starting from zero, and also the most expensive. Tickets sell out, so buy well ahead through the competition’s official channels.
| Event | When | Where | Entry |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sant Fèlix | 30 August | Plaça de la Vila, Vilafranca | Free, standing |
| Mercè session | 24 September, midday | Plaça de Sant Jaume, Barcelona | Free, standing |
| Mercè Històrica | 27 September | Barcelona | Free, standing |
| Concurs de Castells | 3 and 4 October | Tarraco Arena Plaça, Tarragona | Ticketed, seated |
| A colla rehearsal | Midweek, all year | The colla’s own premises | Free |
The bottom row is the one nobody looks at and the one I recommend first.
How to read a castell from scratch
A tower is built from the bottom up and judged from the top down. These five pieces are enough to follow a whole session.
There is also a soundtrack that works as a script. The gralla and the drum play the toc de castell as the tower rises, and the melody tracks the construction: when you hear it change, the enxaneta has started climbing. That is why the square goes silent all at once.
What I do at a diada
- Arrive 45 minutes early and take a side, not the back
- Stay quiet during the climb, like the rest of the square
- Wait for the last person down before applauding
- Start at a rehearsal if I am bringing a beginner
- Check the running order before setting off
What is never done
- Stepping into the pinya without knowing your place
- Cutting across while a colla is setting up
- Using flash, or a drone over the square
- Leaving after the first tower, they build up slowly
- Calling it a human pyramid in front of a casteller
Staying out of the pinya is not politeness, it is safety: that base carries the weight of dozens of people, and one badly placed body is felt at the top.
What I do not gamble on with castells
Going only on the main day. Plaça de Sant Jaume on 24 September is the worst possible first time: too many people, no angle and nobody explaining anything.
Leaving after the first tower. Colles build up through the session and save the serious attempts for the third or fourth round. Leaving early means leaving before the good part.
Assuming the Concurs will be there. It runs every two years and tickets vanish. 2026 is a year it is on; miss it and the next chance is 2028.
Treating a rehearsal as a show. It is a neighbourhood association’s training session, not a performance. Watch, stay out of the way, and ask before filming.
Where to start if you have never seen one
Start with a midweek rehearsal. Free, uncrowded and two metres away. Can Musons, at Carrer de l’Alzina 7, is the easiest door into it in the whole city.
Make La Mercè the second step. With a rehearsal behind you, Plaça de Sant Jaume on the 24th reads completely differently, and the 27th gives you a second run at it.
Save the Concurs for when you can read a tower. Seated, under cover and with the best in the country, but twice as good once you know what a folre is.
Finish it over lunch in the neighbourhood. Sessions end mid-afternoon and the colles go off to celebrate, so it slots neatly into a meal that does not cost much or a bodega vermouth.
A castell is not raised by the person who climbs it, it is raised by the people underneath holding the weight and seeing nothing.
Heading to a diada this autumn? Tell me which one on Instagram @barcelonainspira and I will tell you where to stand.
Keep discovering Barcelona with me
More street culture I write about here: my Mercè guide, what to do in September, the facts that explain the city and the museums you can visit free.
Where can you see human towers in Barcelona
In Plaça de Sant Jaume during La Mercè, which is the city’s big session, and at the neighbourhood street festivals of Gràcia, Sants or Barceloneta through the year. Outside festival dates the easiest way in is a rehearsal. Barcelona has eight colles castelleres and several train midweek at their own premises, free to walk into.
When are the Mercè castells sessions in 2026
There are two and they are not the same event. On Thursday 24 September at midday, in Plaça de Sant Jaume, the local Barcelona colles perform. On Sunday 27 comes the Mercè Històrica, with guest colles from outside the city. Both are free and outdoors, and it is worth arriving well before the stated time to get any view at all.
How much does it cost to watch castells
Nothing, in almost every case. Square sessions happen in the street with open access, and so do the colles’ own rehearsals at their premises. The only big paid event is the Concurs de Castells in Tarragona, held inside the Tarraco Arena Plaça every two years, which sells seated tickets by session.
What is the difference between a castell carregat and descarregat
A castell is carregat when the enxaneta, the child who climbs to the very top, crowns the structure and raises a hand. It is descarregat when the whole colla then comes down without the tower collapsing. Descarregat counts for more than carregat, and that distinction is what decides rankings and comparisons between teams.
When is the Concurs de Castells de Tarragona 2026
Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 October 2026, at the Tarraco Arena Plaça. It is the 30th edition of a competition born in 1932 at the initiative of the cellist Pau Casals, and it runs every two years. Saturday holds an afternoon session and Sunday a morning one. It is the only major castells event watched seated and ticketed.
