Tabernas City Theater

Tabernas City Theater occupies a modest building in the center of Tabernas, the Almería town best known for the desert film sets scattered around it. Behind its plain facade on Calle Rodríguez Carmona lies a history spanning nearly seventy years, during which the building has been a cinema, a grain warehouse, a car park, and finally a municipal theater.

When was the building constructed and why?

Architect Antonio Góngora Galera drew up the plans in 1956 at the request of the Valls Martínez family, local residents who wanted to bring a cinema to Tabernas. The result was a rationalist-style structure with a simple rectangular footprint, roughly 32 metres long and just under 15 metres wide. The cinema opened its doors in 1959 and screened films for local audiences over the following years.

How did a cinema end up as a grain store?

Changing entertainment habits eventually put an end to the cinema's run. The building then passed through two very different uses: first as a grain depot operated by the National Wheat Service, later as a private car park. By the early 1990s it stood empty and unused. The turning point came in 1993, when the Tabernas town council bought the property with a plan to convert it into a proper performance venue while keeping its original outline intact. The renovation took years to complete.

What does the venue look like today?

The theater reopened in 2002 with 499 seats, a sizeable capacity for a town of Tabernas's scale. Its program mixes concerts, theatrical performances, film screenings, and workshops run by local schools, making it the main cultural venue for the municipality. Every year it also hosts the "Rafael Martínez Alarcón «Veneno»" carnival contest, a fixture on the local calendar that draws crowds from across the district.

Why does it matter to visitors passing through Tabernas?

The theater's best-known event is the Almería Western Film Festival, the only festival in Europe dedicated entirely to Western cinema. The choice of location is no accident: throughout the 1960s and 1970s, dozens of spaghetti westerns were filmed in the desert landscapes surrounding Tabernas, and the festival keeps that connection alive with screenings and talks tied to the genre. Travellers combining a visit to the nearby film sets, Oasys MiniHollywood, Fort Bravo, or Texas Hollywood, with a stop in town will find the theater worth checking during festival dates, when it becomes the social hub of the celebrations.

Frequently asked questions

Where exactly is the theater located? On Calle Rodríguez Carmona 2-22, in the center of Tabernas, Almería province.

How many people can the auditorium hold? The venue seats 499 people.

Has the building always been a theater? No. It opened as a cinema in 1959, later served as a grain warehouse and a car park, and was only converted into a municipal theater in 2002.

What kind of events take place there? Concerts, amateur and professional theater performances, film screenings, school workshops, the "Veneno" carnival contest, and the Almería Western Film Festival.

Can visitors tour the building outside of events? Access is generally limited to scheduled performances and festivals, so it's worth checking the local events calendar before planning a visit.