Retromaniacs, twelve years playing together
Born in Sant Andreu in 2014, they keep their machines in a workshop in Mollet del Vallès and every autumn they put on a free retro fair in Barcelona. This is how one of Spain’s longest-running retro communities works.
This edition is about playing with other people, and few things sum that up better than an association. Retromaniacs isn’t a museum or a shop: it’s a group of people who decided that the arcade cabinets, pinball machines and consoles of the eighties and nineties shouldn’t be left in a storeroom, but switched on, with someone in front of them.
From Sant Andreu to Flynn’s
The association was founded in October 2014 in Sant Andreu de Palomar, the old village that is now a Barcelona neighbourhood. It’s a non-profit, and its aim, in its own words, is to spread and preserve the legacy of the classic video games and pinball machines that once filled the arcades: those places of leisure and urban culture that gradually disappeared with the arrival of fruit machines, home consoles and the internet.
They looked for premises in Sant Andreu but ended up in Mollet del Vallès. That’s where Flynn’s is: a 165-square-metre space named after the arcade in Tron, where they store the kit for their events and where members repair, restore and play. What’s inside is enough for several afternoons: arcade cabinets, pinball machines, JAMMA and Neo Geo MVS boards, 8- and 16-bit computers from the ZX Spectrum to the Amiga by way of Amstrad and MSX, and consoles from the Pong machines all the way to the GameCube. Since 2016 they have also held a day for benefactors and members, given over to playing and eating together at the clubhouse.
Arcandreu, the neighbourhood party
Their big event is Arcandreu, which they have run since 2017 and which drew more than 2,000 visitors in its very first year. Every year it returns to where it all began: the Espai Josep Bota in the old Fabra i Coats factory, in Sant Andreu. And it’s always free.
The eighth Arcandreu took place on 3 and 4 October 2026, with areas for arcade, pinball, computers, consoles and a dance machine, a retro market, and tributes to 40 years of OutRun and 30 of the Nintendo 64. There was a concert by Marc Belmont, of Belmont’s Revenge, a panel on the disappearance of physical formats, a cosplay contest and tournaments of Puzzle Bobble 2, Windjammers and Street Fighter II, including a children’s category. Other groups from the scene lend a hand, such as Explora Commodore, Amstrad’s AUA and the studio Anarkade, maker of Rawal Rumble, a beat ’em up set in Barcelona’s Raval.
Each year they also present an Honourable Mention to someone who has helped build the scene. In 2025 it went to Eduardo Cruz and Pere Vicién of Recreativas.org, Spain’s great archive of arcade machines.
Playing to help
The side that says most about them is their charity work. At Arcandreu, everything raised in the collection box, from games of OutRun and from the charity tournaments goes in full to the children’s cancer unit at Hospital Sant Joan de Déu. And every December they organise Retromaniacs Solidario: the twelfth, in 2025, was an online league on Fightcade 2 run with Legion Gamer Galicia, with tournaments of Street Hoop, Soul Calibur, Tetris The Grand Master and Street Fighter II X. To take part you make a donation, this time to AENAR, an association of families of children with retinoblastoma that works with Sant Joan de Déu. Their annual charity tournament was originally tied to La Marató de TV3, Catalan television’s yearly telethon.
Pinball, a league and a community
Between events, members compete in a year-long league with a game of the month. In pinball they have run four seasons of the Barcelona Pinball League and two of the Catalonia Tournament, and since late 2024 they have been part of the Stern Army: monthly tournaments on Saturday mornings that count towards the international IFPA rankings, with a sandwich and a coffee so everyone has breakfast together before play begins.
That last detail explains almost everything. You can play anything online, alone, at any hour. Retromaniacs has spent twelve years proving that what really hooks you is the rest of it: the queue at the machine, the rivalry with whoever’s next to you and the coffee before the first ball.
We’ll soon be publishing an interview here with Elu Tortosa, the association’s president.
Sources