VALENCIA – Valencia will raffle 200 tickets to attend the daily fireworks show during the Fallas celebrations. Lucky winners can see the show from the balcony of the Town Hall. The Fallas are held annually from March 1 to 19.
The show with decorative fireworks is called the ‘mascleta’ and takes place daily at 2 pm. If you are of age and registered in Valencia you can participate in the lottery. Hereto, you can register between 21 and 23 February via the website of the municipality. This year, the city council also invites the winners of the 2020 lottery to experience the ‘mascletas’ from the municipal balcony. They had to suspend the Fallas that pandemic year to contain the spread of the virus.
After the postponement of Las Fallas in March 2020, and multiple plans to celebrate the festival thereafter, Las Fallas in Valencia were celebrated in a modified form from September 1 to 5, 2021.
The Fallas festival, which takes place annually in March, is close to the hearts of Valencians. It is a source of collective creativity that allows the unique Valencian tradition to live on. The aesthetic value of the festival and the age-old rituals passed down from generation to generation have made the Fallas World Heritage Sites.
Satire and humor
Every March, the residents of Valencia celebrate the arrival of spring with art, satire, irony, and humor. For this, neighborhoods or associations work together to make huge dolls. These often tell stories humorously or cynically about the state of the Spanish economy, society, politics, or the same on a global level. Throughout the city, you can see the exposed dolls which are often over twenty metres high.
Fireworks and party
In five days, you can see about four hundred Fallas. The days start with ‘mascletas’ (deafening fireworks) and there is partying, eating, and drinking everywhere. In addition, more than 100,000 ‘falleros’ pass through the city to perform flower offerings. At the end of the feast, residents burn the dolls in a ritual way.
Origen of Las Fallas de Valencia
Traditionally, the arrival of spring meant the end of work for carpenters during dark days. Then, they said goodbye to night work and burned a ‘parot’ in the street in front of the workshop. This is a kind of mast from which hung the lantern that lit the dark street. People lit this fire with wood remnants and other old items that residents brought. Over the years, the parot became more and more human. Eventually, it resulted in the fallas as we know them today.
Lottery draw
The raffle for the free tickets is on February 25th. The lucky ones will receive an email, which they must answer to confirm their presence.
