Everything is prepared at the Campoamor Theatre in Oviedo for the ceremony of the Princess of Asturias Awards 2026, presided by the Kings Felipe and Letizia and with the attendance of Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofía. The prestigious awards will recognise in their 46th edition excellence and commitment of the singer Patti Smith, the writer Julian Barnes or the footballer Leo Messi, among other laureates.
As is customary, the Spanish royal family attended last night a concert in which the Choir of the Princess of Asturias Foundation and the Symphony Orchestra of the Principality of Asturias offered a selection of Mendelssohn’s movements. Today the day began with the traditional audiences at the Reconquista Hotel in Oviedo, where the starring roles have fallen especially on Leonor and Sofía.
The daughters of the Kings of Spain have postponed for a few days their university classes in Madrid and Paris, respectively, to receive in the Council Hall the laureates of the End-of-Degree Awards 2025 of the University of Oviedo. This is the first time the two sisters assume this responsibility without the company of their parents.
Leonor y Sofía, en la ausencia en Oviedo.
Among complicit glances and many smiles alongside peers and university students like them, the two sisters posed with the laureates and their professors. For this occasion, Princess Leonor chose a flattering tailored look in salmon pink. For her part, Infanta Sofía also opted for an elegant blazer suit in aubergine, one of the autumn’s trends.
The Solo Debut of Leonor
With the first of the audiences of Leonor and Sofía concluded, the moment arrived for them to join their parents for a new reception, without changing location at the Reconquista. In this case, the Royal Family as a whole received the recipients of the Asturias Medals, the Favoured Children and the Adopted Children of 2026.
Leonor and Sofía, at their first audience of the day.
But undoubtedly the day’s most striking moment has been the princess Leonor’s solo debut as she received in audience, this time in the Covadonga Hall of the Reconquista Hotel, the laureates of the Princess of Asturias Awards 2026. A decision that marks a fundamental milestone in her institutional maturity and in the gradual delegation of duties to her heir by King Felipe VI.
This important step for the heir to the Spanish throne consolidates the strategy begun in 2024 and formalised last year, when Felipe VI delegated to Leonor the task of extolling the laureates and delivering the ceremony’s closing speech. At twenty years old, with her military training already completed and in the midst of her university studies, this debut arrives forty years after a young Prince Felipe presided over the awards ceremony in Oviedo for the first time without the presence of Juan Carlos and Sofía.
The Princess of Asturias Awards Presentation
From 6:30 p.m., the kings Felipe VI and Letizia will preside together with Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofía over the central act of the awards ceremony at the Campoamor Theatre in Oviedo. It is planned that both Felipe VI and his eldest daughter will deliver speeches. Because the ceremony’s time is limited, only four of the eight laureates will go up to the podium to offer their speeches: Julian Barnes (Literature), Christina Koch (Concordia), Timothy Garton Ash (Social Sciences) and Patti Smith (Arts).
The Spanish royal family’s schedule in the Principality will close on Saturday, 24 October. On that day the kings Felipe VI and Letizia and their daughters will travel to Llanes to deliver the award to the Exemplary Town of Asturias 2026, which this year has fallen to the Santa Ana Fishermen’s Confraternity.
