The music festival Brands like Bands, where the performers all share in common their day jobs, has grown from a Portuguese idea into an international cultural movement.
Today, Brands Like Bands is embarking on its biggest chapter yet: a multi-country tour that will bring corporate bands to stages across Europe and beyond, including a key stop in Barcelona, Spain on May 20.
Started by Portuguese entrepreneur Fernando Gaspar Barros, Brands Like Bands is the world’s only music festival dedicated entirely to bands formed inside companies. What started as an unconventional concept in Portugal has evolved into a global celebration of creativity in the workplace, in which where engineers, marketers, consultants, and analysts step out of their offices and onto the stage.
The idea behind Brands Like Bands is both simple and surprisingly powerful, which is that many realyl strong musicians spend their days working in corporations.
Across industries, from startups and finance to consulting and logistics, these colleagues regularly form bands together after hours. Rather than treating music as a hobby hidden from professional life, Brands Like Bands puts it front and center.
Over the years, the festival has grown into a unique platform where employees from companies around the world perform live in front of large audiences. In earlier editions, these corporate bands have even played alongside major acts at events such as Rock in Rio, sharing the broader festival environment with artists like Muse, Duran Duran, and Post Malone.
After 13 successful editions, the festival has proven that workplace culture and live music can intersect in unexpected and inspiring ways.
Brands Like Bands reflects the vision of Fernando Gaspar Barros, who has long explored how creativity influences company culture. When he was first starting out, he worked on innovation initiatives linking technology and music. One of those programs connected the tech giant with Abbey Road Studios, famous for recordings by The Beatles, and the European cultural funding program Creative Europe.
Those experiences helped shape the philosophy behind Brands Like Bands: creativity inside companies is often hidden, yet it can be one of the strongest forces for connection.
This year marks the festival’s most expansive journey yet. The 2026 tour will travel through seven countries and eight cities between March and October.
It begins on March 13 and 14 at the iconic Hard Club in Porto, Portugal’s second-largest city. Bands representing companies such as Ageas, Armis Group, Blip, ManpowerGroup, Natixis, and Sabseg will perform.
From there, the festival continues through Lisbon, São Paulo, Florence, Barcelona, Berlin, London, and Oulu. The stop in Barcelona on May 20 is expected to bring together corporate musicians from across Europe in one of the continent’s most vibrant cultural capitals.
The tour will conclude in Oulu, Finland, which has been designated the European Capital of Culture in 2026.
Article’s featured photo of Fernando Gaspar Barros
