Nerja Cave Festival Returns in 2027 After Legal Deadlock The Nerja Cave Festival returns in 2027 after a two-year legal deadlock, with Spain's contract appeals tribunal clearing up to twelve outdoor shows at the cave. The Nerja Cave Festival will return in 2027 after a two-year legal deadlock, following a ruling by Spain's Central Administrative Court of Contractual Appeals that has finally cleared the way for the event to be organised again. The news, confirmed by the Cueva de Nerja Foundation on 11 November, ends a dispute that had kept one of the Costa del Sol's most beloved cultural events off the calendar since its last edition in the summer of 2024. What the ruling says The tribunal rejected the appeal filed by Mundo Management, one of the parties in the disputed contract process, and cleared the way for PIES Compañía Discográfica to organise the festival. Under the terms now confirmed, the company will be able to stage up to twelve outdoor shows as part of the revived programme. The Foundation, which runs the cave and the festival, welcomed the decision as a green light to resume a tradition that stretches back more than six decades. Why the festival disappeared The Nerja Cave Festival is not just another summer concert series. It was born in 1960, the same year the cave opened to the public, and for decades it has brought music and dance to one of the most extraordinary performance settings in Europe: a prehistoric cave above the Mediterranean, whose natural caverns give performances an acoustic and visual atmosphere no concert hall can imitate. That history is exactly why the last two years have hurt. The dispute over who had the right to organise the festival dragged through procurement reviews and appeals, with the result that 2025 and 2026 passed without an edition. For a town whose cultural calendar had revolved around the festival for generations, its absence was felt far beyond the box office, by hotels, restaurants and the thousands of visitors who would combine a cave visit with the chance to see a show. About the cave itself The Cueva de Nerja sits at Maro, a few kilometres east of Nerja town centre and 158 metres above sea level. It is one of the most extensively developed caves in Andalusia, with more than 4,800 metres of explored galleries, and it has been a listed Site of Cultural Interest since 2006. The cave's halls contain rock formations of extraordinary scale, along with cave paintings and archaeological remains that make it both a natural and a historical monument. Visitors can tour it all year round, and the site also includes a museum that tells the story of the cave's discovery and of the surrounding area. The discovery story itself has become local legend. In 1959, a group of boys from Maro exploring the hillside found an opening that led them into a cavern so vast they could not see its far wall by candlelight. The cave opened to the public the following year, and the festival began almost immediately, growing into a fixture of the Spanish summer season. What happens next With the legal path finally clear, attention turns to the 2027 programme. The confirmed framework allows up to twelve outdoor shows, which points to a festival of real scale rather than a token revival. Dates, artists and ticket arrangements will be announced by the Foundation and the organisers in the usual way, and if past editions are any guide, the most popular nights will sell quickly, because the festival's audience is loyal and international. For Nerja, the timing could hardly be better. The town has spent recent years building its reputation as a year-round destination, with the seafront promenade, the Balcón de Europa and the cave itself as anchors. A festival that fills summer evenings with music, with the sea a short walk away, is exactly the kind of cultural tourism the eastern Costa del Sol wants more of. The wait, in the end, will have been worth it. After two silent summers, music is coming back to the cave.