ENSOLAB reaches its tenth edition at Las Cigarreras in Alicante: day-by-day schedule and free entry from 29 to 31 October

José Manuel Berenguer played at the first edition of ENSOLAB and will open the tenth. Alicante's experimental electronic music festival returns to the Centro Cultural Las Cigarreras from Thursday 29 to Saturday 31 October, with free entry, an extra space, the Secadero, and eight acts in which returning artists with new projects carry as much weight as the one chosen through an open call that received 182 submissions. Dates, venues and tickets on the ENSOLAB page.

In 2021, when it still billed itself as ENSO and Ensolab was the name of its block of masterclasses and live shows, the festival booked Esplendor Geométrico to close its fifth edition. It takes place in the final stretch of October at Las Cigarreras, the former tobacco factory run by Alicante's Department of Culture. This year it is organised together with that department and the Consorci de Museus de la Comunitat Valenciana. The poster, a large X designed by @cyberchulo, is made up of the names of those who have played the festival: from Esplendor Geométrico to Óscar Mulero and Ceephax Acid Crew.

An anniversary with returning artists

Thursday is devoted entirely to José Manuel Berenguer, founder of the Orquestra del Caos, co-founder of Côclea and one of the figures of electroacoustic music and experimental sound art in Spain. At 19:00 he will present his latest work and at 20:30 he will improvise in the Caja Negra with Autoimprovisaciones. According to the festival's description, he improvises against Autoimpro, a program that listens to, records and transforms what is playing: eight software agents pick out fragments, manipulate them and play them back, so that sounds from a few minutes earlier end up feeding the improvisation.

The returns continue on Friday and Saturday. BROMO is the duo of Paloma Peñarrubia, on sound, and Azael Ferrer, on visuals; Ferrer had already performed at ENSOLAB and now returns as part of the duo with CRISPR, the pattern of life, a show about gene editing that has been staged at festivals such as L.E.V. and Eufònic. Kosu Nes x Urok brings together Andrés Satué, who previously came with his project Huma, and visual artist Urok. They move between noise and generative processes, and in Liminoid, their joint work, they accompanied the music with lasers and reflective surfaces; the organisers have not yet detailed what they will present in Alicante.

Even the open call, the initiative through which this edition aims to open the festival up to new projects, has ended up with a familiar face. From the 182 submissions, ENSOLAB selected Orden y Caos, by Alpha Decay (Amber Laparra), who had already appeared at the festival, and Luisa Madrid: Alpha Decay provides the modular synthesisers and Luisa Madrid the real-time visuals, with a live camera and spatialised sound. What is new is the collaboration, not the artist. With that line-up, White Solar Dog, who takes electro into a science-fiction world of journeys through space-time, is the only one of the five live acts that the organisers do not link to previous editions.

For a tenth anniversary, looking back makes sense: the festival can show how its artists have changed. But it also leaves less room for names that have not yet played Las Cigarreras, precisely in the year when the open call shows there is interest in getting in.

ENSOLAB 2026 schedule by day

ENSOLAB keeps the formula that the festival itself regards as its hallmark: each project gives a masterclass in the afternoon on its tools and way of working and performs that same night. Anyone who attends both will see the method first and then the result. The programme does not state what time each activity ends.

Thursday 29 October

• 19:00, Caja Negra: José Manuel Berenguer presentation
• 20:30, Caja Negra: José Manuel Berenguer, Autoimprovisaciones

Friday 30 October

• 17:00, Caja Negra: Alpha Decay + Luisa Madrid masterclass
• 17:30, Secadero: Rare Session by Yin Elek
• 19:00, Caja Negra: BROMO masterclass
• 21:00, Casa de la Música: Alpha Decay + Luisa Madrid, Orden y Caos
• 22:00, Casa de la Música: BROMO, CRISPR, the pattern of life

Saturday 31 October

• 17:00, Caja Negra: Kosu Nes x Urok masterclass
• 17:00, Secadero: Rare Session by Ximo Noguera, in hybrid format
• 19:00, Caja Negra: White Solar Dog masterclass
• 19:30, Secadero: Rare Session by Fag Hag
• 22:00, Casa de la Música: Kosu Nes x Urok
• 23:00, Casa de la Música: White Solar Dog

The Secadero, the festival's new space for the Rare Sessions

The Secadero, a covered outdoor space, will this year be ENSOLAB's third stage and its chill-out area. It is new to the festival, not to Las Cigarreras: in September, Atronador Fest, another experimental music gathering held at the same centre and also marking its tenth edition, already staged some of its concerts there.

That is where the Rare Sessions take place, DJ sets designed more for listening and discovery than for the dance floor:

• Yin Elek (Cristóbal Jurado) plays with two turntables and vinyl, and over his career has moved through electro, house, minimal techno, dub and ambient.
• Ximo Noguera has been DJing since 1991 and heads Industrial Complexx, an association that operates as a label and publisher of industrial and experimental music and has published, among other things, a book on Esplendor Geométrico. His set will be hybrid.
• Fag Hag, from Alicante and based in Valencia, closes the Secadero with deconstructed rhythms, noise, breaks and percussion.

There is a practical detail: the Secadero sessions start while masterclasses are under way in the Caja Negra. On Friday, Yin Elek begins half an hour after the start of the Alpha Decay and Luisa Madrid masterclass. On Saturday, Ximo Noguera starts at 17:00, at the same time as Kosu Nes x Urok, and Fag Hag begins at 19:30, with the White Solar Dog masterclass already in progress. At night, by contrast, the live shows at the Casa de la Música follow one after another.

Free entry: how to get a ticket and what is still unknown

Alicante City Council presents ENSOLAB as a free-entry festival. The official website links to the ENSOLAB 2026 page on Eventbrite, where the ticket appears as a donation, with a starting price of €0, and was still available on 22 October. Las Cigarreras is at calle San Carlos, 78.

Neither the festival nor the City Council has clarified whether booking is essential, whether one ticket is valid for all three days or how many people each room holds. In 2024, the City Council warned that admission was subject to capacity, so the sensible thing is to get a ticket in advance and arrive at the live shows with time to spare.

Saturday 31st is also Halloween night. Anyone who prefers a club night has options in other cities in our guide to Halloween 2026 festivals. For more plans nearby, see the festival listings for Alicante and the electronic music festival listings.

Sources: ENSOLAB press release (22 October 2026); Alicante City Council (22 October 2026 and October 2024 listings); ENSOLAB's official website and its Eventbrite page, consulted on 22 October; Alicante Plaza (7 June 2021), on the 2021 edition.