Budget Travel - How far in advance are the best fares on Ryanair?

Mrs. Swede and I are looking to book a trip to Girona/Barcelona this July. Fares are an outrageous $250/each the weekend we were looking to go (July 13). A week later, the fares are $170/each. A week before, the fares are about $255/person.

1. Does this mean there's some huge event going on in Barcelona? Only thing I see is a 6000-person doctor convention.
2. Are all of the cheap fares gone, and there is little chance of the fares going back down?

Thanks in advance.

It would be helpful to know where you're flying from.

I was just wanting to know if there were some rule-of-thumb things I needed to know about booking on FR.

Checked prices again, and it dropped to $170/person ($199/person after all of the fun fees).

Thanks anyways.

If there's an event, the prices will go up. If a lot of people are buying tickets at the same time, prices will go up.

As a rule, FR prices start low and increase as the dates get closer, with some drops if there are sales.

As a rule, FR prices start low and increase as the dates get closer, with some drops if there are sales.
It's more complicated than that - for example popular routes on popular dates (eg England to Malaga over the last weekend of July) may start high and drop if the demand isn't as expected. Other routes will start low to encourage business and then will go high as seats are sold. There may be a dip several weeks before the date of travel to sell remaining seats but then the nearer the day of travel fares go higher as they start selling to people who have an urgent need to make unplanned travel.

And of course the return leg may be on a different cycle so whilst you can get a cheap flight out, you can't get a cheap flight back (this is especially noticeable during sales)

4 to 8 weeks is the optimum time for the really low fares.Premium dates, will already have risen to non bargain prices by this time, so probably will not offer any real value.However if you can be flexible, there are some £15.99 /15.99 Euro fares to/from Barcelona (reus) from Liverpool. for June + July
Be sure which "Barcelona airport" you are flying into as they are spread over aprox 100 miles apart

Ryanair serve Barcelona from

El Prat (main Airport)
Girona (Costa Brava)
Reus (Costa Daurada)

Book as singles and you will pay the same in the departing Spain leg as you would in GB£s if its booked as a return, a saving of 22% if paying with a good card for fx payments.