(CelebrityAccess) — The Music Republic has reportedly acquired one of Spain’s leading music festivals – the Festival Internacional de Benicàssim (FIB) from Maraworld.

FIB will join The Music Republic’s existing festival portfolio, which includes events such as Arenal Sound, Viña Rock, Granada Sound, and Madrid Salvaje.

According to Spanish language news service El Mundo, The Music Republic, created in the mid-1990s by David and Toño Sánchez, announced plans to assume “management of the festival in successive year” and planned to maintain the “essence” of the festival.

That ‘essence’ doesn’t’ seem to include its current creative team. According to El Mundo, all staff at Maraworld have been informed they will be let go in the coming days.

Maraworld was founded in 1997 by former Benicàssim directors José Luis and Miguel Morán, who sold the event to Irish promoter Vince Power. Power subsequently sold a controlling stake in the festival to Denis Desmond’s MCD and Simon Moran’s SJM Concerts in 2014 amid declining attendance.

Festival Republic’s Melvin Benn stepped in to oversee the event in 2017, resulting in some of the best-attended festivals in the last decade, with more than 170,000 fans turning out for Benicàssim in 2017.

However, attendance slipped for the 2019 edition of the festival, with reported attendance of just over 110,000.

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