Book Now: Primavera Sound

Face it: the weather can make or break a festival. You and your friends can spend almost £200 each on a ticket, plus more on camping gear, petrol and beer, and if the sun's out you can have the best weekend of the whole year. If it's not out -- and in Scotland we can barely guarantee there won't be a snow blizzard in July -- it can be a miserable few days, a succession of endurance tests as you try to focus on the music while clouds empty themselves onto your head and into your socks for hours on end.

That doesnae happen in Spain: the rain stays mainly on the plane. At Primavera, in Barcelona, the test is to focus on the music while the sun avails itself of your face. So already, the festival's made; go with friends and already you're guaranteed one of the best weekends you'll have all year. But Primavera would be awesome even in the unlikely event of a cloud, because it's in Barcelona, and because its lineup is uhh-may-zing. (That's the technical term, by the way.)

Barcelona is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, if not the world. If you haven't been, here's an excuse to go. It's dominated by the architecture of Antoni Gaudi, including La Segrada Familia, his absurdly ambitious church that's 128 years-in-progress and still years from completion. The gothic quarter is a really cool place to go out drinking, and football fans have to visit the Nou Camp, though it's £17 to get inside for a tour.

The festival starts late afternoon and goes on until the early hours of the morning, which leaves the middle of the day for sleeping, the beach, tourist attractions, or all three. Primavera is located a tram-ride from the city centre, on the Mediterranean coast. This year is its tenth anniversary, so they've pushed the boat out with the line-up. Even the P's add up to a lot: Pixies, Pavement, Panda Bear, Pet Shop Boys. And there's 25 more letters to go! O has Orbital and Owen Pallett; F has The Fall, The Field, Fuck Buttons and Florence & The Machine; S has Spoon, Shellac, Sic Alps, Sunny Day Real Estate; W has Wilco, Wild Beasts, Wire; B has Beach House, Beak, Broken Social Scene and Built To Spill. I can't list it all here: check the full line-up out here.

Return flights to Barca are around £240 at the moment, and accommodation should set you back £15-25 per night, depending how posh you are about it. Primavera tickets are available for £155 from Seetickets.