The three original founders of Spanish festival Sónar have all stepped down after more than 30 years heading the event.

Brunch Electronik founder François Jozic has been named as Sónar’s new CEO.

Enrich Palau, Richard Robles and Sergio Caballero launched the Barcelona-based festival in 1994 and have since grown it from a grassroots event to an internationally renowned event that this year attracted a record 161,000 attendees. In its 31-year tenure, Sónar has expanded into three distinct events: Sónar by Day, Sónar by Night and Sónar+D.

In 2018 the trio sold most of their shares to European promoter Superstruct Entertainment but continued to have creative input. One of the world’s biggest festival promoters, Superstruct Entertainment was sold by equity fund owner Providence Equity Partners to private equity giant KKR for a reported €1.3 billion (£1.1bn) in June last year. A number of artists boycotted the festival this year due to KKR’s ties to Israel.

In May, Superstruct issued a statement in response to the KKR backlash in which it said the company is independently run and makes its own decisions based on the best interests of fans, artists and colleagues.

Sónar’s team issued a statement earlier this year outlining that it would “not send a single Euro to KKR.” While Palau, Robles and Caballero have dissociated from the festival completely, the reasons for this, despite recent controversies, have not been revealed.

Next year’s event will go ahead on 18-20 June and will combine all three Sónar strands.

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