{"id":372421,"date":"2025-08-25T13:36:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T13:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/372421\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T13:36:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T13:36:12","slug":"what-to-know-about-spains-tomatina-festival-the-tomato-street-fight-turning-80","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/372421\/","title":{"rendered":"What to know about Spain\u2019s \u2018Tomatina\u2019 festival, the tomato street fight turning 80"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thousands of people will paint a town red with tomato pulp Wednesday, flinging the fruit at one another in the 80th anniversary of Spain\u2019s famous \u201cTomatina\u201d tomato street fight<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The hourlong event<\/a> brings 120 tons of overripe tomatoes to the eastern town of Bu\u00f1ol, where tarp-covered buildings flank a crowd of up to 22,000 participants awaiting their ammo. Non-local attendees pay 15 euros ($17.50) for a ticket and arrive from countries across the globe or cities a bus ride away.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it\u2019s going on, it\u2019s just a blur of tomatoes,\u201d said Adrian Columb of Ireland, who attended in 1999. \u201cIt was a blast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what to know about the \u201cTomatina\u201d festival:<\/p>\n

The anniversary of a spontaneous food fight<\/p>\n

Held on the last Wednesday of August, the event was inspired by a food fight between local children who pelted each other with tomatoes in 1945.<\/p>\n

After becoming a yearly tradition, \u201cTomatina\u201d was briefly banned in the 1950s by Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, a decision locals protested. Televised media attention in the 1980s turned the festival into a national event, eventually drawing an international crowd.<\/p>\n

In 2002, Spain officially recognized the festival as an international tourism attraction. Since then, the event has only been suspended twice<\/a>, in 2020 and 2021, because of the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n

The tomatoes aren\u2019t edible<\/p>\n

The tomatoes thrown aren\u2019t from crops treated like those used for food. That\u2019s because they\u2019re grown exclusively for the festival, said Bu\u00f1ol Deputy Mayor Sergio Galarza.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf \u2018Tomatina\u2019 didn\u2019t exist, these tomatoes wouldn\u2019t be cultivated because there wouldn\u2019t be a need for them,\u201d Galarza said.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s supply hails from Don Benito, a town over 5 hours away.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s only one rule<\/p>\n

There are no teams, no points and no referees, but there is a guideline: To avoid injuries, participants are encouraged to squash the tomatoes before hurling them (and of course, refrain from hurling anything else).<\/p>\n

Even then, many people don swimming goggles and earplugs for protection.<\/p>\n

When Columb attended, he said, a friend of his finished the battle with two black eyes. \u201cBut I know he\u2019s kind of tall, so maybe he was a target,\u201d Columb added.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou finish exhausted,\u201d said Galarza, who grew up going to the festival before becoming its chief councilor. \u201cYour arms are worn out, everything is worn out from moving and launching it all.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mash of projectiles leaves attendees \u201cup to your ankles deep in this tomato puree,\u201d Columb said.<\/p>\n

Once the hour is up, marked by the sound of a cannon shot, crowds shuffle to wash off at nearby communal showers while the town\u2019s streets are hosed. Though the stains on clothes are likely irreversible, the citric acid in the tomatoes acts as an effective cleaning agent on the pavement. Three to four hours later, the streets are sometimes left cleaner than before.<\/p>\n

Other countries have taken inspiration<\/p>\n

Similar tomato-flinging festivals have taken place in Florida, London, Amsterdam,<\/a> the Colombian town of Sutamarch\u00e1n and, most recently, Hyderabad, India.<\/p>\n

Still, for Galarza, a native of the festival\u2019s original location, \u201cTomatina\u201d is synonymous with Bu\u00f1ol, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe truth is that it\u2019s exciting because year after year, you can see how \u2018Tomatina\u2019 grows and evolves,\u201d Galarza said, \u201cand you can enjoy a festival that is super wholesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luena Rodriguez-feo Vileira, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thousands of people will paint a town red with tomato pulp Wednesday, flinging the fruit at one another…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[130311,130315,2000,299,130313,130314,130310,104,130316,130312],"class_list":{"0":"post-372421","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-adrian-columb","9":"tag-bunol","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-food-fight","13":"tag-overripe-tomatoes","14":"tag-sergio-galarza","15":"tag-spain","16":"tag-street-fight","17":"tag-tomatina"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115089678297833453","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}