ENSOLAB

ENSOLAB 2026 takes place from Thursday 29 to Saturday 31 October at the Centro Cultural Las Cigarreras in Alicante, with free entry. It is the tenth edition of an experimental electronic music festival with an unusual format: in the afternoon, the artists performing live explain their tools and the way they work in a masterclass, and that same night they play. This year the programme is spread across three spaces in the centre, one of them new to the festival.

From a workshop series to a three-day festival

ENSOLAB began in 2017 under the name ENSO, and that first edition did not look like a festival: it was a series of masterclasses and workshops held between September and December, with sessions on synthesis, soundscape, live coding and mixing. One of those workshops, live performance included, was given by José Manuel Berenguer on 20 and 21 December. Nine years later, he opens the tenth anniversary.

In recent editions the festival has been concentrated in the final stretch of October. In 2021, the fifth edition, it was still billed as ENSO, Festival de Producción y Música Electrónica; Ensolab was the name of its block of masterclasses and live shows in the Caja Negra, and Esplendor Geométrico was programmed to close that edition at the Casa de la Música. Today it is organised by ENSOLAB with the Consorci de Museus de la Comunitat Valenciana and Alicante City Council's Department of Culture. The 2026 poster, a large X designed by @cyberchulo, is made up of the names of those who have appeared at the festival, from Esplendor Geométrico to Óscar Mulero and Ceephax Acid Crew.

ENSOLAB 2026 timetable by day

Thursday is a short opening day, devoted solely to Berenguer. Friday and Saturday follow the same pattern: masterclasses at 17:00 and 19:00 in the Caja Negra, Rare Sessions in the Secadero in the late afternoon and live shows at night in the Casa de la Música. Anyone who attends both the masterclass and the concert of the same project will see the method first and then the result. The programme only gives the start time of each activity.

Thursday 29 October

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

Friday 30 October

• 17:00, Caja Negra: masterclass by Alpha Decay + Luisa Madrid
• 17:30, Secadero: Rare Session by Yin Elek
• 19:00, Caja Negra: masterclass by BROMO
• 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: masterclass by Kosu Nes x Urok
• 17:00, Secadero: Rare Session by Ximo Noguera, in hybrid format
• 19:00, Caja Negra: masterclass by White Solar Dog
• 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 afternoons force you to choose. On Friday, Yin Elek starts DJing at 17:30, while the masterclass by Alpha Decay and Luisa Madrid is under way. On Saturday, Ximo Noguera starts at 17:00, at the same time as the Kosu Nes x Urok masterclass, and Fag Hag begins at 19:30, when the White Solar Dog one has already started. At night there is no such dilemma: the live shows at the Casa de la Música run one at a time, with an hour between the start of each.

2026 line-up: returns, an open call and three listening sessions

José Manuel Berenguer, founder of the Orquestra del Caos and co-founder of Côclea, presents his latest work on Thursday and then performs Autoimprovisaciones: according to the festival's description, he improvises alongside Autoimpro, a program with eight software agents that records what is playing and feeds it back, transformed, into the improvisation.

Returns also define the other live shows. 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, an audiovisual 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 the visual artist Urok, in territory somewhere between noise and generative processes. Alpha Decay (Amber Laparra) also returns, this time with Luisa Madrid: Orden y Caos, with modular synthesisers and real-time visuals, was the project chosen from the 182 submissions to this edition's open call. White Solar Dog, who takes electro into a science-fiction world, closes Saturday and is the only one of the five live acts that the organisers do not link to previous editions.

Looking back suits an anniversary, but it leaves little room for new names in precisely the year the open call has shown that there are many projects wanting to get in.

The Rare Sessions are DJ sets designed more for listening and discovery than for the dance floor. Yin Elek (Cristóbal Jurado) plays vinyl and has moved through electro, house, minimal techno, dub and ambient. Ximo Noguera, a DJ since 1991, runs Industrial Complexx, a label and publisher dedicated to industrial and experimental music. Fag Hag, from Alicante and based in Valencia, closes the Secadero with deconstructed rhythms, noise, breaks and percussion.

Free entry: Eventbrite and what is still to be confirmed

Alicante City Council presents ENSOLAB as a free-entry festival. The official website links to the ENSOLAB 2026 page on Eventbrite, where the ticket is listed as a donation, from €0, and was still available on 22 October.

Neither the festival nor the City Council has published the capacity of each space, nor clarified whether the Eventbrite ticket is essential or whether it is valid for all three days. In 2024 the City Council announced entry until capacity was reached, so the sensible thing is to get one in advance and arrive in good time for the night-time live shows. The festival's contact is info@ensolab.es.

Las Cigarreras: three spaces in the former tobacco factory

The Centro Cultural Las Cigarreras, at Calle San Carlos, 78, occupies Alicante's former tobacco factory and is run by the City Council's Culture department. ENSOLAB uses three of its spaces: the Caja Negra, for Thursday's programme and the masterclasses; the Casa de la Música, for the night-time live shows; and the Secadero, a covered outdoor space that this year hosts the Rare Sessions and a chill-out area. The Secadero is new to the festival, not to the centre: in September, Atronador Fest, another experimental music gathering, already held some of its concerts there.

More events nearby in the listings of festivals in Alicante and in those for electronic and experimental music.