The line-up also includes James Bay, Zara Larsson, Nothing But Thieves, De La Soul and Luísa Sonza, in addition to Portuguese artists Dino D’Santigo, Mundo Segundo & Sam The Kid, ProfJam and Jimmy P.

The festival will feature four stages, one of which will be exclusively dedicated to electronic music, where four DJs will perform per day.

Doors are set to open at 4:30pm and close at 3:00am.

“The objective is to place Braga on the map for the best and biggest music festivals in the world”, said the general director of Malpevent, Marco Polónia, the promoter of Authentica.

According to Marco Polónia, this is “a hot festival in the middle of winter”, which will take place every year in Braga, and always in December.

The idea to focus on hosting a winter festival is based on making up for a lack of any festival of this type held in Portugal at this time of the year.

Authentica will take place in a space covering an area of ​​15,000 square metres, which could accommodate 25,000 people, but the organisation has set a maximum limit of 18,000.

“We could have 25,000 seats, but we're only going to sell 18,000 tickets a day,” said Marco Polónia.

He underlined that this project began to be put together more than a year and a half ago, but because of the pandemic, it is only now going to materialise.

The mayor of Braga, Ricardo Rio, said that Authentica puts the city "on the map for major festivals nationwide".

“We are counting on having the festival for many good years in Braga”, he added, also expressing satisfaction that the city “is once again leading the resumption of cultural activity”, after having been the stage for the first pilot events to test the return of large scale shows, in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.

While the majority of people are optimistic about the festival, there are doubts about its viability in a year which is so drastically effected by Covid-19 measures.

“We want to believe that the Government is an institution of its word”, said Marco Polónia, alluding to the guarantee left by the prime minister that restrictions on cultural events would be lifted when 85 percent of the population is fully vaccinated.

Meanwhile, InvestBraga's administrator, Carlos Silva, has said he has no doubts that the festival will really happen.

A one-day ticket to Authentica will cost €45 and for both days €70, which rises to €80 and €150 respectively, in the case of a VIP ticket.