Gibraltar rocks to its MTV Music Festival

Anyone expending that sort of energy needs sustenance and the food stalls ensured that there was plenty of that available. The variety was almost as wide as the types of music, ranging from salads to curries and burgers and chips, and of course the bars also did a roaring trade.

Rumours of a security scare threatened to mar the proceedings on Saturday, but they were soon laid to rest by statements from the Royal Gibraltar Police and chief minister Fabian Picardo, confirming that no machetes had been found in the arena and that the venue was perfectly safe. In fact, the security at the festival was impressive.

I felt safe the whole time, said Jennifer Fernandez, from Gibraltar. Everyone was searched, it would have been impossible to smuggle anything dangerous in. As a regular festival goer, she thinks this years event will be hard to beat. The music festival was already excellent, so I would say this year was as excellent, she said. How can you improve on that?

In a Facebook post after the weekend the chief minister described how the event has grown: Never in my wildest imagination could I think we would grow that mega concert into the brilliant MTV & Gibraltar branded event that we saw this weekend, he said. It is no longer just an event for our youth; it is also an event for tourism, marketing and Gibraltar generally.