Spanish austerity comes to tomato-throwing festival
Buñol is bracing itself for a fresh eruption of
squishy anarchy on Wednesday, when thousands of revellers will cram into the
streets of the small Spanish town to join the famous annual tomato-throwing
festival known as the Tomatina
But
this year, for the first time, the boisterous participants will be charged an
entry fee of €10 in a shift that is being seen as a potent symbol of Spain’s economic
crisis and the financial malaise that has gripped so many of the
country’s cities and villages.
Held
every last Wednesday in August, the festival attracts huge crowds of locals and
tourists who spend a frenzied hour chucking truck loads of over-ripe tomatoes
at each other. It ranks as one of Spain’s most popular local festivals, along
with the running of the bulls in Pamplona, and has spawned similar
tomato-throwing parties in the US, Colombia and even China.
This
year, however, the red-tinted festival comes at a price. For the first time
since the Tomatina was launched almost six decades ago, the city has decided to
demand an entry fee. The privileged few who ride into the mayhem on the back of
one of the tomato trucks (and get to throw the first missiles at the
defenceless crowds below) will have to stump up no less than €750.
City
officials say the move reflects the need to limit the number of visitors and
ensure safety, but they admit that there is also more pressure than in the past
to balance the municipal books.
“The
Tomatina costs us about €150,000, so with the new entrance tickets we will more
or less cover our costs,” says Rafael Pérez, the local councillor in charge of
the festivities. The city has sold all 15,000 available tickets in advance,
with another 5,000 free slots reserved for locals.
Mr
Pérez says the new regime was brought in not least after the experience of last
year, when almost 50,000 visitors packed into Buñol’s narrow streets, many of
them disappointingly far from the action. Safety, he adds, is the main reason
for limiting the numbers and charging a fee, but concedes that financing local
festivals like the Tomatina was easier during the years of Spain’s building boom,
when local councils were awash in property taxes.
“Everyone
is doing badly at the moment,” says Mr Pérez. “But we have debts of only €1m
compared with an annual budget of €8m. That is much better than most of the
surrounding villages. We could still finance the Tomatina even without the
entry tickets.”
His
assurances, however, have not stopped the Spanish media from warning that
Buñol’s new entrance limits mark a first step towards the “privatisation” of
the country’s beloved local festivals. El País, the daily newspaper, described
the new regime as “a great metaphor for the economic crisis that is crippling
Spain”, drawing an arresting parallel between the bursting of ripe tomatoes and
the bursting of the country’s real estate and debt bubbles.
According
to official data, local councils had amassed total debts of €42bn at the end of
last year – sparking a funding crisis that has forced the worst-affected towns
and cities to slash even basic services.
In
the case of Buñol, however, the new entrance fee will not be used to pay off
debts, but to ensure that the Tomatina produces an even more spectacular mess
than in the past. “The more money we raise, the more tomatoes we can buy,” says
Mr Pérez.