What does it mean for visitors and residents in the south?
WOMAD is not on the doorstep for the south of Gran Canaria. The festival is held in the Parque Santa Catalina, in the Puerto de la Luz port district of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
Main-stage concerts are free, according to the published programme. Some extra events may need registration, but which ones is not clear.
No source says how long the journey takes from the southern resorts. Nor is there any mention of special buses from the south.
Anyone planning to go should check times and registration rules on the official website, the organiser's page. It showed a server error when we tried, so the times are unconfirmed.
Where is the park and how do you get there?
The Parque Santa Catalina sits next to the Muelle Santa Catalina (Santa Catalina quay) and the port's large hotels. According to the programme, the Guaguas Municipales (city buses) and the MetroGuagua serve the park.
The source gives no route numbers or timetables. Bus passengers should check with the operator.
The Playa de Las Canteras beach is about five minutes' walk away. The programme suggests combining the concert with a stroll on the beach.
No road closures or parking bans around the park are noted anywhere. On 11 November the homepage of the Ayuntamiento (city council) of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria carried no notice about WOMAD.
What is usually on the WOMAD programme?
Peter Gabriel founded WOMAD (World of Music, Arts and Dance) in 1982 to showcase music, art and dance from around the world. The Las Palmas edition has run since 1993, as reported in 2023, when it was held on Las Canteras beach.
Concerts usually feature artists from West Africa, the Caribbean, the Maghreb, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. Canarian and Spanish acts join them.
The programme also lists workshops in instruments, dance and visual art, plus film screenings. No accessible source says who plays in 2026.
For comparison, 29 artists from 19 countries played in 2021, among them Amparanoia, Ana Tijoux, Oumou Sangaré, Dubioza Kolektiv and Cimafunk. The literary programme “Mundo de Palabras” and the Casa África film series ran alongside.
Who organises and pays for the festival?
Entry is free, but no budget or cost split between the institutions has been published. Visitor numbers for 2023 to 2025 are not available either.
According to RTVC, Dania Dévora, the longtime director, announced in November 2023 that they were stepping down from running WOMAD in Spain and Portugal. The report named no successor and said the future depended on the commitment of funders.
On 10 October 2024, RTVC reported that the 2024 edition was “en el aire”, meaning up in the air, weeks before the date. The city said at the time that it backed the organisers but that everything was in their hands.
What is still open, and what is easy to confuse?
Start times, artists per stage and stage locations are open for all four days. Details of events needing registration, free buses and traffic rules are missing too.
A hotel firm's concert calendar still listed the 2026 dates as not officially announced. That note may be older than the 8 September entry, which lists the festival as confirmed.
The layout has changed before: in 2022 the WOMAD main stage moved to the Plaza de Canarias, after standing in the Parque Santa Catalina in 2021. Which arrangement applies in 2026 is not confirmed.
In 2021, concerts in the Sala Miller needed a ticket request, and the venues had fences, capacity limits and access checks. Whether that holds this year is not known.
Do not confuse WOMAD with WOMEX, the trade fair in Las Palmas that ran from 21 to 25 October 2026, according to research, and charged for accreditation. The page on the official website belongs to the festival in Cáceres.
Anyone still on the island after 15 November can hear Sole Giménez at the Auditorio Alfredo Kraus on 21 November at 20:00. The concert is part of the 20th Festival Mar Abierto, not WOMAD, and tickets go through the auditorium's ticket link.