What Is La Tomatina The festival of La

What Is La Tomatina? The festival of La Tomatina has been celebrated in Buñol, a small village in the Valencian Community, since 1945. It takes place on the last Wednesday of August. La Tomatina attracts hundreds of thousands of people, including tourists from all around the world. During the festival, people throw tomatoes at each other for hours! Did You Know…? During the main event of La Tomatina, the streets of Buñol become like rivers of tomato! Can you guess how many tomatoes that would take?

La Tomatina Origins The festival of La Tomatina has become very popular in recent years but it originally started many decades ago. It is known to have been celebrated in the 1940 s. However, it was forbidden during the rule of Francisco Franco because it did not have any religious meaning or connections. As well as the ‘tomato fight’, the festival of La Tomatina has music and dancing; lots of people enjoy themselves.

Facts and Figures Tomatoes The main battle during La Tomatina requires around 150, 000 tomatoes! This is the same as around 40 tonnes of tomatoes. Price Taking part in La Tomatina has a small cost due to the amount of visitors it receives. In 2019, tickets to La Tomatina cost 12 euros each. Visitors More than 20, 000 people from all around the world travel to Buñol every August to take part in the festival. Challenge: If we know that 35, 000 people have bought tickets for La Tomatina and each person receives 6 tomatoes to throw, how many tomatoes will be used? 210, 000 tomatoes!

The Rules If you ever decide to visit the festival of La Tomatina, you will need to know the following rules: You cannot enter the festival with bottles or hard objects. You need to squash the tomatoes before throwing them at people. It’s safer and hurts less! You cannot damage anyone’s clothing. When you hear the signal, you need to stop throwing tomatoes. You need to follow instructions from the security staff in Buñol.

The Controversy Even though the festival of La Tomatina is very popular, it carries a little controversy. There are two positions towards the celebration: some people support it and some people oppose it. For Against The tomatoes used are too ripe for human consumption so it makes sense to use them in the festival. The festival wastes lots of tomatoes which end up on the street. Thanks to international tourism, it is a source of income for the region. It is an unnecessary expense. You should not destroy food that could be used elsewhere.