The Tomatina

The Tomatina is a festival that takes place on the last Wednesday of August each year in the town of
Bunol near to Valencia in Spain. Thousands of Thousands of people who come to the village of Buol
from all regions of Spain and others countries for the chance to take part of the 'World's Biggest Food
Fight' where more than one hundred metric tons of over-ripe tomatoes are thrown in the streets.
At around 11am many trucks haul the bounty of tomatoes into the center of the town, Plaza del Pueblo.
The tomatoes come from Extremadura, where they are less expensive. Technically the festival does not
begin until one brave soul has climbed to the top of a two-story high, greased-up wooden pole and
reached the coveted ham at the top. In practice this process takes a long time and the festival starts
despite no one reaching the meaty prize. The signal for the beginning of the fight is firing of water
cannons, and the chaos begins. Once it begins, the battle is generally every man for himself.
Since 2013 the ticket it cost around 10 but official ticketing has been in place limiting the number of
lucky participants.
History
There is no difinitive version of how La Tomatina started, but the tradition of a tomato fight has taken
place in Buol wich is a town of Valencia, Spain, since at least 1944. Theories on why the first tomato
fight took place include a food fight among friends, a juvenile class war between bare-foot comunist and
upper class snob from Madrid on summer vation. They were standing on the street next to a big basket
of tomatos, watching a parade. They started to fight using the tomatos, one thing leads to another, and
suddenly everybody was fighting. The people form Buol tought it was a good idea and promptly re-
invoked the tradition the following year.
Today from 20,000 to 50,000 people from all over the world come to Buol to get fruity with one
another.
The city council wich is in charge of the Tomatina Festival, follows a short list of instructions for the
safety of the participants and the festival:
1. Do not throw bottles or hard objects
2. Do not tear or throw tee-shirts
3. Squash tomatoes before throwing them to avoid hurting others
4. Keep a safe distance from trucks
5. Stop throwing tomatoes after the second starter pistol shot
6. Follow the directions of security staff