Donostia Arena 2016 · Profile

The Illunbe bullring opened on 11 August 1998 in San Sebastián. It is a first-category bullring and a multipurpose venue on Paseo de Miramón, next to the Anoeta sports complex. It is also known as Illumbe, Donostia Arena 2016 or San Sebastián Arena 2016. It holds close to 11,000 spectators across ten seating sections, and its retractable roof allows bullfights, basketball, concerts and other events to be staged all year round. Since 2006 it has been the home court of Gipuzkoa Basket, apart from two seasons when the team went back to its old arena.

Twenty-five years without a bullring

San Sebastián lost its bullring in 1973, when the Chofre arena was demolished. It had been built in 1903 to a design by the architect Francisco Urcola. For the next quarter of a century, the city had no permanent bullring. From the start, Illunbe was designed for more than bullfighting: an enclosed, publicly owned circular stand that could host large sporting and cultural events, something the city had lacked until then.

A roof that opens and closes

The roof is the building's most striking feature. In 1995, the project's developers and architects asked the San Sebastián firm Lanik for a roof that could open and close. The answer was a space frame of tubular bars joined by spherical nodes, using the Ortz system patented by the engineers Juan Martínez Apeztegia and Ignacio Odriozola. The roof spans more than 100 metres without intermediate pillars and weighs about 600 tonnes. At its centre, two half-ellipse doors of 60 tonnes each slide along rails, driven by eight geared motors, and leave an opening of 50 by 52 metres. The bullring was roofed two years after it opened.

Bullfighting and the Semana Grande

From the opening, the August bullfighting fair tied to San Sebastián's Semana Grande festival was the venue's main annual event. In August 2012 the last fair was held before a break. The EH Bildu city government, led by mayor Juan Karlos Izagirre, did not renew the bullring's lease with any bullfighting promoter. After the municipal elections of May 2015 put the PNV and PSE in charge of the city council, the Chopera company rented the arena and bullfighting returned between 13 and 16 August 2015. More than a thousand people joined an anti-bullfighting march against the return. In July 2025, the city council rejected a Podemos motion to end bullfighting at Illunbe, with the PNV, PSE and PP voting against it.

Home of Gipuzkoa Basket

In 2006, Gipuzkoa Basket won promotion to the Liga ACB as LEB champions. The José Antonio Gasca arena held fewer than 3,000 spectators and the ACB required at least 5,000, so the club moved to Illunbe for the 2006-07 season. Strong crowd support made it the second-best attended club in the ACB, behind only Unicaja, with close to 9,000 season-ticket holders. The team went down that same season and returned to the top flight after winning the 2008 promotion final in Cáceres. Its best campaign at the arena came in 2011-12: it finished fifth in the regular season and reached the playoff quarter-finals against Valencia Basket. In 2013, the city council granted the club use of the arena for thirty seasons.

Departures, returns and a new court

After relegation in 2016, the team spent the 2016-17 season at the Gasca, won LEB Oro and came back to Illunbe on its return to the ACB. The pattern repeated in 2019-20: another season at the Gasca, which ended with a promotion granted by a court ruling in July 2020. In September 2020, the sand of the ring was replaced by a concrete base with a parquet court. A further relegation to LEB Oro was confirmed on 13 May 2021. In October 2021, the city opened the court to other local clubs, such as the Bera Bera handball team, through Donostia Kirola.

Bertsolaris, concerts and shows

Besides sport and bullfighting, the arena has hosted concerts, freestyle motocross shows, Basque recortadores bull-dodging contests and major events in bertsolaritza, the Basque improvised-verse tradition. On 14 December 2019, about 6,000 people attended the Gipuzkoa bertsolari championship final at Illunbe, where Beñat Gaztelumendi won his second txapela.

The Illunbe Berria project

In February 2025, San Sebastián city council presented the preliminary design for turning the bullring into a large multipurpose arena. It includes a rectangular building for 15,000 spectators, keeps the round ring with about 3,000 seats and adds an underground car park. The preliminary design puts the estimated cost at around 70 million euros.