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FC Barcelona's Camp Nou renovation live streamed on Twitch and YouTube

Camp Nou Now brings daily updates on construction works for thousands of followers

Eric Cerveto livestreams the Camp Nou renovations live from his living room
Eric Cerveto livestreams the Camp Nou renovations live from his living room / Ona Van Dyck Colomer

Ona Van Dyck Colomer | Barcelona

April 22, 2024 10:17 AM

April 22, 2024 01:11 PM

Camp Nou, the football stadium of FC Barcelona, has been a construction site for almost a year, working on renovating the iconic home stadium of the Catalan football team. 

The renovations have sparked the interest of fans around the world wanting to know what's happening with the stadium. One of the few providers of information about the constructions is 'Camp Nou Now', run by Eric Cerveto, livestreaming the construction site from his living room. 

"On Twitch and Youtube I stream the day-by-day developments while on Instagram and TikTok I publish updates four or five times a week, there I try to give it some humor so it can be a bit lively because at the end of the day it's just a construction site," Cerveto told Catalan News.

 

"I knew that for other stadiums there were accounts that had success by streaming and updating people on what's going on, and because I live here, I was already posting some things on my personal profile. I saw that my followers were interested so I thought that it would be better to open a public profile instead of my private one," Cerveto added. 

Immediate success 

Cerveto started Camp Nou Now in September 2023 and has since gathered more than 92,000 followers on Instagram and more than 69,000 on TikTok. 

"I started on TikTok and Instagram with short videos, those had some success early on, mostly the humoristic videos are being watched the most," Cerveto said. 

On Twitch and Youtube, Cerveto has on average 100 viewers at all times on both platforms watching the livestreams. 

"Most people who watch are from Spain, probably because of the time zone. But people from South America might tune in later in the day. But most of Spaniards watching are currently living in another country and thank me for giving information on what's going on," Cerveto said. 

Besides the daily updates Cerveto also publishes videos on weird and funny things he sees on the construction site, almost gathering one million views on a video about smoke coming out of a machine. 

"Because I don't know much about how constructions work, I sometimes see very strange things but for someone who knows how it works it wouldn't be strange," Cerveto explained after being asked what the strangest thing he has seen is. 

"One of my recent videos that went viral was about a man walking around the construction site without safety gear, he suddenly grabbed something, and it looked like he was stealing it and trying to hide, that's one of the recent funny things I've seen," Cerveto added. 

Investing and future 

"I started with a GoPro and an old computer that I still had. The camera kept disconnecting and I needed to constantly make sure it was staying connected," Cerveto explained about his start in livestreaming. 

"I started with three viewers, the next week I had ten, then thirty, that's when I started investing and bought these zoom cameras," he said. 

Camp Nou Now has gathered more than 90,000 followers on Instagram
Camp Nou Now has gathered more than 90,000 followers on Instagram / Ona Van Dyck Colomer

The Camp Nou construction works are expected to end by June 2026

"I'm not really worried, I've been learning a lot because before this I didn't even have TikTok and I had never seen Twitch, I haven't thought about it or planned out what I will do next and when it happens, I will see what the options are. They will probably be different from any options I can think of now, so we'll see in two years," the streamer explained. 

Neighborhood disturbance 

FC Barcelona has been fined twice for not complying with the permitted working hours

Some neighbors have complained about dust, noise and general disturbance by the construction site. 

"It's true that they are constructions that bring more disturbance than when your neighbor is renovating his bathroom. But there was also some disturbance before, it could take you up to an hour longer to get home by car if there was a game on that same day," Cerveto explained. 

The football team currently plays their home games at the Olympic stadium in Montjuïc, causing there to be less movement in the area. 

"There have been some locals that have lost revenue in their businesses because there are less people walking around here now, but Barça also tried to make sure these local businesses don't get impacted too much and that after the construction they can all recover," Cerveto added.