Pep Salazar, director of OFFF — the design and creativity festival he's shaped since 2007 — joins Radim to unpack what it really takes to build a "city for three days." ~
Pep traces his own unlikely path, from a teenager who dreamed of being an actor in a small town near Barcelona, through his formative years building Sónar, to the moment he realised passion alone can blur your vision and every idea needs a manager to make it real.
They talk about why OFFF shows unfinished work instead of polished portfolios, how a team of seven becomes thirty-five once the doors open, and why Pep would rather rebrand the festival every five years than let it stand still. This is a conversation about risk, honesty, and the invisible, exhausting, joyful work of building a community that actually means it.
Takeaways
Passion can blur your vision — every big idea eventually needs a manager to protect it and make it real
A festival isn't a finished portfolio piece; showing the process and the unfinished idea is what builds real trust with a community
Location does double duty — the city gives you context, but the venue has to speak the same language as the event itself
Curating without a fixed theme keeps a lineup honest and lets creativity stay wide instead of narrow
Saying no to most people who want the stage is one of the hardest, least visible parts of the job
Deliberately rebranding every few years keeps a design festival credible — you can't ask others to embrace change if you won't
Growth doesn't have to mean franchising — co-producing with local partners builds real community instead of a copy-paste event
The job is made of a thousand three-minute conversations, and learning to actually enjoy them is its own skill
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